"Once."
"And I lost it?"
"You didn't want it."
She covered her face with her hands again.
"And you--did you ever love me?" he asked bitterly.
"Not then."
"Do you mean?" he paused, and then unsteadily: "Have you come back to
your husband, Eva?"
"Not then--but now!"
Astry stood still; for a moment the fundamental forces of life seemed
suspended. He was amazed. Then he took a step forward, but before he
spoke Eva suddenly swayed and would have fallen but for his arms around
her.
He lifted her and carried her up-stairs. She was unconscious and her
head lay helpless, her pretty soft hair against his breast. He carried
her across the hall and into her own room and laid her on the bed with
a touch as tender as a woman's. The disdain and anger and bitterness
that had been waging a battle in his soul receded before the wave of
humanity, of pity, almost of tenderness, that suddenly submerged his
being. Her helplessness, the appeal of her childish face, the evident
grief and humiliation that she had suffered to tell him the truth,
touched his heart. He summoned her maid and then went out softly and
closed the door.
Before him he seemed to see the long, cruel way that her small,
bleeding feet had traveled, coming back at last to him.
In his heart he had already forgiven her.