He frowned at her whimsically. "They've always cared for one another. Don't you know it? It's true she put me in a shrine and worshipped me for a time, but I couldn't live up to it. _Figurez-vous, ma chère!_ Myself--a marble saint!" "You never understood her," Maud said. He shrugged his shoulders and went lightly on. "Oh, she was ready enough to offer me human sacrifice, but that wasn't enough for me. Besides, I didn't want sacrifice. I have stood between her and the world. I have given her protection. But it was a free gift. I don't take anything in exchange for that." An odd note sounded in his voice, as of some emotion suppressed. He leaned back against the window-frame, his hands behind his head. "That wasn't what I married her for. I tried to prove that to her. I actually thought--" the old derisive grin leapt across his face--"that I could win her trust like any ordinary man. I failed of course--failed hideously. She never expected decent treatment from me. She never even began to trust me. I was far too heavily handicapped for that. And so--as soon as the wind changed--the boat capsized." "What made the wind change?" Maud asked gently. He looked across at her, the baffling smile still in his eyes. "The gods played a jest with us," he said. "It was only a small jest, but it turned the scale. She fled. That was how I came to realize I couldn't hold her. I had travelled too fast as usual, and she couldn't keep up. Well," he unlocked his hands and straightened himself, "it's up to Bunny now. I'll let her go--to him." "My dear!" Maud said. He laughed at her with the old half-caressing ridicule. "That shocks you? But why--if they love each other? Haven't I heard you preach the gospel of love as the greatest thing on earth? Didn't you once tell me that I had yet to learn the joy--" his smile twisted again--"the overwhelming joy--of setting the happiness of another before one's own? This thing can be done quite simply and easily--as I suggested to you long ago. She has only to go away with him, and I do the rest. A moral crime--no more. Yes, it is against your code of course. But consider! I only stand to lose that which I have never possessed. For the first time in my life, I commit a crime in the name of--love!" He laughed over the word; yet even through the scoffing sound there came a ring of pain. His face had a drawn look--the wistfulness of the monkey that has seen its prize irrevocably snatched away. Maud rose quickly. There was something in his attitude or expression that she could not bear. "Oh, you are wrong! You are wrong!" she said. "You have the power to make her love you. And you love her. Charlie, this thing has not been given you to throw away. You can't! You can't!"