"I do," he said; "I forgive you freely. If I could undo your wretchedness by giving my life for you, I'd give it. You don't know how I loved you--what it meant to me to find you gone! Ah, Mamie, how could you do it?" The tears stood in her eyes, as she lifted her white face to him. "I'm ashamed!" she moaned. "What can I say?" "Why?" said Heriot, at the end of a tense pause. "Why? Did you care for him so much? If he had lived and married you, would you be happy?" "Happy!" she echoed, with something between a laugh and a sob. "Tell me. I hoped you'd be happy. That's true. I never wanted you to suffer for what you'd done. I suffered enough for both." "I don't think I should have married him. I don't know; I don't think so. I knew I'd made a mistake before--oh, in the first month! If _you_ haven't hated me, I have hated myself." "And since? You've been with _her_?" "Ever since. My poor father wanted me to go home. I wish I had! You know I've lost him--she told you that? He wanted me to go home, but I couldn't--where everybody knew! You understand? And then she moved to Balham, and we never left it till two months ago, when the cable came. We were in time to see him die. My poor father!" He touched her hand, and her fingers closed on it. "You oughtn't to be up here at night," he said huskily, looking at her with blinded eyes. "Didn't the man tell you that the night air was bad? And that flimsy wrap--it's no use so! Draw it across your mouth." "What's the difference?--there, then! Shall you--will you speak to me again after this evening, or is this the last talk we shall have? I had so much to say to you, but I don't seem able to find it now you're here.... If you believe that I ask your pardon on my knees, I suppose, after all, that that's everything. If ever a man deserved a good wife it was you; I realise it more clearly than I did while we were together--though I think I knew it then.... You never married again?" "No," he answered; "no, I haven't married." "But you will, perhaps? Why haven't you?" "I'm too old, and--I cared too much for _you_." The tears were running down her face now; she loosed his hand to wipe them away. "Don't say I've ruined your life," she pleaded; "don't say that! My own--yes; my own--it served me right! but I've tried so hard to believe that _you_ had got over it. When I read of your election, and then that you were made Solicitor-General, I was glad, ever so glad. I thought, 'He's successful; he has his career.' I've always wanted to believe that your work was enough--that you had forgotten. It wasn't so?" "No, it wasn't so. I did my best to forget you, but I couldn't."