"Because I cannot bear to live on, seeing you so unhappy; because you are unhappy with me, as I can see; and because you will be even more so when we are together, later--always." She quivered in every fibre. A strange lucidity came over her. She saw all that had happened as if mirrored in crystal. "Hear me, Frank," she said, in a clear, bright voice. "Remain where you are and listen to me; listen well. I mean to be true to you, and we shall be happy. I feel that we shall. What has occurred that we should always be miserable? Nothing. I repeat it--nothing. Do not let us spoil our own lives. I doubted you once; you have forgiven me. That is all at an end. You discovered that Bertie was a scoundrel, and you killed him. That, too, is ended. Nothing of all this can matter to me now. I will never think of it again. It has ceased to exist so far as I am concerned.--And that is all, Frank. Consider, reflect--that is all. Nothing else has happened. And that is not much. We are young and strong; we are not really old. And I tell you we can live a new life, somewhere, together; somewhere, a long way from London. A new life, Frank, a new life!--I love you, Frank. You are everything to me. You are my idol, my husband, my darling, my child, my great child." She clasped his head passionately to her bosom in a rapture, her eyes sparkling, and a flush tinging the azalea whiteness of her cheeks. But his eyes met hers with a look of anguish. "You are an angel, Eva; you are an angel. But I cannot claim you. For, listen now to me. The real truth--" "Well, what is the truth?" "Bertie was not a scoundrel. He was nothing but a man, a very weak man. That is the truth.... Listen to me, Eva; let me speak. I thought a great deal--at Scheveningen--among the sand-hills--you know. I thought over everything I could remember of what he had said to me in those last moments, in self-defence; and by degrees all his words came back to me, and I felt that he had been in the right." "In the right? Oh, Frank! I do not know what he said in self-defence; but now, still, shall Bertie's influence come between us to part us?" she cried, in bitter despair. "No, it is not that," he replied. "Make no mistake; it is not Bertie's influence which divides us; it is my guilt." "Your guilt?" "My guilt, which rises up before me from time to time, reminding me of what I have done, so that I cannot forget it, shall never forget it.... Let me tell you. He was right in what he said at last. He was a weak creature, he said, flung into life without any strength of will. Was that his fault? He despised himself for having done so mean a thing about those letters. But he had not known what else to do. Well, and I forgive him for being weak, for he could not help it; and we are all weak--I am weak, too." "But you would never have done such a thing?" cried Eva.