The other said nothing for a long time, simply considered the situation which Rainham's words, and still more even than anything that he had said, the things that he had not said, had strikingly revealed to him, leaving him, at the last, in a state of mingled emotions over which, perhaps, awe predominated. At last he remarked abruptly: "It _is_ you who are fortunate; you are so nearly done with it all; you've such a long rest before you." Then he added with a new solemnity: "You may trust me, Rainham. When it is seasonable, Mrs. Lightmark shall know the truth. Perhaps she will come to me for it-- Heaven knows!--stranger things have happened. You have my hand upon it; I think you are right." "Right? You mean that it wasn't a mistake, a _betise_?" "_Felix culpa_! If it was a mistake it was a very fine one." "Ah! I don't regret it," said Rainham, "only----" "Only it was a mistake to suppose that life was to be arranged. That was all I meant. Yes; I don't believe in much, but I believe in necessity. You can't get over it yourself, and you can't--no, not for all your goodwill, your generosity--get over it for another. There are simply inevitable results of irrevocable causes, and no place for repentance or restitution. And yet you help her, not as you meant to, and not now; but ah, you help her!" "So long as I do that----" murmured Rainham, with a deep inhalation, closing his eyes wearily, in a manner which revealed how severely the intimate strain of conversation had told upon him. Oswyn waited a little longer, in half expectation of his further utterance; but Rainham made no sign, lay quite motionless and hushed, his hands clasped outside of the counterpane as if already in the imitation of death; then the other rose and made a quiet exit, imagining that his friend slept, or would soon sleep. And yet actually, in spite of the extreme physical weariness which had gradually stolen over him, dulling his senses, so that he was hardly conscious of Oswyn's departure, or of the subdued entrance of the nurse, who had been discreetly waiting for it, Rainham's mind was still keenly vigilant; and it was in the relief of a certain new lucidity, an almost hieratic calm, that he reviewed that recent interview, in which he had so deliberately unburdened himself. It seemed as if, in his great weakness, the ache of his old desire, his fever of longing, bad suddenly left him, giving place (as though the literal wasting away of his body had really given freer access to that pure spirit, its prisoner), to a love now altogether purged of passion, and become strangely tolerable and sweet. CHAPTER XXX