Astry stood looking at her, a strange conflict of emotions in his face.
"Are you telling me the truth, Eva, or are you trying to shield him
again?"
"I'm telling you the truth. I thought I loved him, I was afraid of
you,--you frightened me sometimes then,--and I had loved him once, I--"
"You never loved me then?"
She hesitated; again a dark blush mounted from throat to brow.
"At first I married you because--because Aunt Drusilla wanted it,
because--" she stopped.
"Yes--because?" he was watching her sternly.
"Because I wanted to make a great match."
"Oh, for my money!"
"If you want to put it that way."
"And afterwards you called back Belhaven?"
Again she assented.
"You thought it easy to be free of the millionaire after--" He
stopped, something in the mute agony of her attitude, her evident
humiliation, checking him.
"I thought I loved Belhaven," she said simply, determined not to spare
herself. "I was going to run away with him. He begged me to--but it
wasn't any more his fault than mine. I'm trying to tell you the truth,
the whole truth. Then came that night and your anger and--and I saw he
was afraid."
"The hound!"
"I saw he was afraid," her voice trailed on, quivering, "and I saw how
Rachel suffered. Johnstone, I've been punished; I deserve it, but--the
way is fearful, that way of the transgressors. Not my feet only, but my
heart bleeds. I went to Rachel; I begged her, I've begged her twice,
to get a divorce, to marry Charter; they love each other. She won't do
it--because--" Eva's voice broke with a sob--"she says she can't, that
it would ruin me."
"So it would--now."
"Then let it! I can't bear this, Johnstone; cast me out, help Rachel to
get free. I can't bear it any longer, it's killing me!"
"You've quite forgotten me, Eva."
"No, no, I haven't!" She burst into sudden, violent weeping. "I
haven't; I know now--I know you've suffered too. Johnstone, you won't
kill him?"
"Not now. It would disgrace Rachel. Think what I--your husband--owe to
Rachel."
"Then it's for her, you mean? It can't be done on her account?"
He nodded; speech was not easy.
Eva stood up, stretching out her arms with her impotent, childish
gesture of despair. "I never thought--oh, God, why can't I die?"
"Why didn't you tell me the truth then, as you're telling me now? What
if I killed him?"
"I was afraid; I'm a coward, I've told you so!" She stopped and stood
looking at him, then suddenly her face quivered. "Can you forgive me?
I've suffered, I'd like to feel that you'd forgiven me."
"Does it make any difference? Does it matter?"
"It matters to me."
He turned and met her eyes and his face paled. "Eva," he said gently,
"did you ever even for one moment love me?"
She pressed her hands together tightly, looking at him strangely.
"Would--would it make it easier to forgive me?"
"Yes," he replied slowly, "I, too, have traveled a long way, Eva;
I, too, came to find that there was no love for me; I, too, have
suffered,--I'm really quite human. But I could forgive you, I would
forgive you even this, if I felt that you'd ever been honest with me,
ever loved your husband for a moment in your life."