"I know . . . that he went; he wanted to say that all he had was at your service. . . . He need not cross your path again. I have told him to-night that I shall not see him any more."
Of what her short sentence, all said in one breath, revealed to him, her husband gave no sign. A low flush came into his cheek; his love for her shook him; his desire that his belief in her should be perfect was the greatest thing in the world.
"I thought," he said, "that you would be terribly cut up at this, and that it would be a relief to be free."
He stopped. It was as bald as his delicacy would let him present it to his wife.
"It seemed the best way all around," he finished, huskily.
She lifted one of his hands and laid it to her cheek, and said, after a second of silence, with great feeling:
"I can never tell you how bitterly I am regretting your suffering, and the years you have spent trying to make money that has done us only harm and which is lost in a day—how I am bitterly regretting your loneliness and all I have been so blind and cruel as to have caused. . . . I am not afraid of being poor, and you are so brave and strong you will get it back some day—if you never do, I don't care. It isn't the money I'm thinking of, it's you." She paused; she saw her nerves were giving way; another moment and she would not be able to speak. "Oh," she cried, desperately, "Amory, can you forgive me? Do you think I can make you happy? Let me try—let me try . . . my heart is breaking!"
She burst into a passion of tears and threw herself across him on the bed.
He rose and lifted her in his arms, holding her strongly with confidence and new appropriation. He kissed her again and again. He was not a psychologist; he was not a suspicious, jealous nature. He loved her. He had no poignant, cruel questions to ask her. She had come to him in the moment of his need—perhaps in a moment of her own more bitter. He was her husband; she had thrown herself into his embrace . . . he held her there.
After a few moments, when she had found a little composure, she said:
"Do you remember the little farm you told me of in Illinois, Amory? When you can leave New York let us go there by ourselves and live for a while, and we can plan what to do."
"We will," he said, eagerly, "just you and I alone. How fine you are, how wonderfully you bear it! I will win everything back again for you, darling."
She shook her head and smiled sadly. "You have done too much for me as it is. What can I do now for you! That is the question!"
He caught her hands, and bending his face to hers, said:
"You can love me—some day. Not as I love you—never nearly as well, but in the same way. . . . And we will make a home—a real home. I mean . . . not just for you and me alone, darling, but—" He hesitated, his voice trembling.
Life had come back to him fully—she had restored it; and the warmth of her so near to him, so close to him, was filling him with a joy which the misfortunes of the world could not cloud. Perhaps, because she could not then meet his eyes with the perfectness of a love like to his, and to hide her face in its moved sweetness, she put her arms around him; with a gesture infinitely tender, at once protecting and maternal, she drew his head down upon her breast. She whispered:
"Yes—I know, Amory; I understand."
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