He recounted to her, as naturally as everything else, the whole history of his acquaintanceship with the Robinsons. He spared himself not a detail: how he had first dallied with temptation, his moment of panic, his specious reasoning, his ignoble surrender! He laid himself bare as with a scalpel. Yet of Alice he spoke always with reverence and loyalty, dwelling on her devotion, on the little she needed from him to give her happiness. And Lady Betty caught his appreciation of her. "I seem to know and understand her well," she said. "She is a delicate, untarnished soul. She seems more real to me than people who have lived near me all my life. And so her heart has gone out to me! I feel I could never bear to meet her--the moment would be too terrible! Ah, why did you not speak in the old days?" "I repeat I had not the right. And then I did not dream I was worth one single thought of yours." "I gave you all my thoughts. You were so serious. You sat with knitted brow, sternly in your work, and I hardly dared to come near you. You seemed remote from women; grimly devoted to your purpose--to triumph or to die! At poor me you scarcely deigned to look. And then you disappeared, and I knew you would not return." "I disappeared. I left happiness behind me, and retired into my living tomb." "My heart bleeds for you." There was a pause. Her eyes were full of pain. But presently she broke the silence, as if discovering some crumb of comfort. "This time at least you will not be going to privation." "In my heart of hearts privation is preferable." "Ah, no. Remember it is the call of duty. It is the sacrifice we must make for Alice's sake. She is a good woman. Her life must not be broken." "I promise I shall try to make her happy--whatever the cost. But think how happy we should have been together, you and I, darling." "We should have been happy together," she said in a low voice. "It would have been a perfect union. But I say again that life is a compromise. Our demands are great; we have to accept the little that is granted." "Yet the door still stands open," he mused. "We may yet take our fate into our own hands." "The door stands open, but we turn our backs upon it." "We are too strong," he groaned. "I am tempted to pray for weakness." She drew herself up, her face alight with a noble radiance. "Let us both be proud of our strength. We have set right above everything." "But suppose we are mistaken--" he urged tensely. "We cannot strike her down! No, no, we must not take away her great happiness--you have given it to her! I depute you, if you love me, to guard her welfare--on my behalf and on your own. Remember, too, she is happy with so little!" "I shall be a loyal husband. But, in the realms that lie outside her penetration, you have promised that I may cherish the thought of you as an inspiration." "To speak to you with my own voice--to help you to the strength that cannot falter!"