SCENE VIII THE DAWN BREAKS When consciousness returned, he found himself stretched at full length upon the couch. Lady Tintagel knelt beside him, her arms around him. He could feel the rapid beating of her heart; her soft, quick breathing, mingled with kisses, on his brow and hair. Words of tenderness unthinkable poured from her lips. He woke at once to vivid consciousness; but lay with eyes closed, waiting till he could gather up his strength, master himself, and take hold on calm speech. And all the while her flood of tenderness poured over him. It was as if his helplessness had broken down all barriers, his loss of consciousness had burst the bonds of her reserve. The love and longing of those thirty years throbbed in her clasping arms. “My Love, my own! Don’t go from me again. Ah, when you wake you will remember all! Nigel, you will remember.” She held him closer to her breast. He felt the desperate strength in those poor clinging arms. “Dear God, when he awakes, he will remember! He will call his own wife by her name. He will know all at last. At last he will remember.” Her tears and kisses rained upon his face. At length he spoke. “Loose me,” he said. “Mine,” she murmured, her trembling lips against his hair. “Mine again, at last. I have waited so long—so long.” He shrank away from her. “Loose me,” he said, “loose me and let me go. I do not want to hurt you.” “You could not hurt me, Nigel. I am past being hurt. My love would welcome pain.” Yet her lips quivered. Her eyes searched his. No answering light of love was in their sombre depths. “You would loose me at once,” he said, “if you could know how much I loathe that you should hold and touch me.” Her arms fell away from him. She pressed her hands against her breasts, as if his words had been an actual blow. She recoiled from him, moving backwards on her knees, gazing at him in dumb dismay; then hid her stricken face in both her hands. He sprang to his feet, crossed to the window, and flung aside a curtain. Dawn was breaking, in one pale silver streak on the horizon. Sea birds called to one another in the distance. A chill mist lay on the lawn. In the corner of the veranda he could see the ghostly outline of the chair in which he had waited the night before. He turned back into the lighted room. The fire burned low. He stirred the embers and threw on fresh logs. He raised Lady Tintagel from her knees and led her to the couch. “Forgive me,” he said. “How I hate to give you pain! But our only hope is to be absolutely honest with ourselves and with each other.” She lifted sorrowful eyes, but made no answer. “Will you forgive me if that which I must say is hard to hear? It would help me if you could say: ‘I will forgive you’” Her smile was sadder far than tears.