“Take her back?”--violently. “I’ll be shot if I do! She’s chosen to live her life without me for the last few years--she can continue to do so.” Jean laid her hand on his arm. She was smiling wistfully. “Dear, you’ll have to take her back,” she persisted gently. “Don’t you see--she’s not wholly to blame? You’ve admitted that. You’ve blamed yourself in a large measure for her running away. It’s up to you now to put things straight, to--to give her the chance she didn’t have before.” “You’re discounting these last few years,” he returned gravely. “These years in which she has lived a lie, allowing me to believe her dead---cheating and deceiving me as no man was ever cheated before. She’s cheated me out of my happiness”--heavily--“taken _you_ from me!” “Yes, I know.” Jean’s voice quivered, but she steadied it again. “But even in that, she was not solely to blame. You’ve told me how--how weak she is and easily led astray. And she’s very young. What chance would Nesta have of asserting her will against her sister’s, even had she wished to return to you? She ran away from Staple in a fit of temper and because you had frightened her. After that--you can see for yourself--Madame de Varigny is responsible for everything that has happened since.” Tormarin remained silent. The quiet justice of Jean’s summing up of the situation struck at him hard. She waited a moment, then added quietly: “You must take her back, Blaise.” He wheeled round on her violently. “And you?” he exclaimed. “You? Did you ever love me, Jean, that you can talk so coolly about turning me over to another woman?” She whitened at the bitter accusation in his tones, but she did not flinch. “It’s just _because_ I love you, Blaise, that I want you to do this thing--to do the only thing that is worthy of you. Oh, my dear, my dear”--her hands went out to him in sudden, helpless pleading--“do you think it’s _easy_ for me to ask it?” The desolate cry pierced him. He caught her in his arms, kissing her fiercely, adoringly. “Sweetheart!... Forgive me! I’m half mad, I think. Beloved, say that you forgive me!” She leaned against him, glad to feel the straining clasp of his arms about her--to rest once more in her place against his heart. “Dearest of all,” she said tremulously, “there is no question of forgiveness between us two. There never will be. We’re just--both of us--struggling in the dark, and there’s only duty”--brokenly--“only duty to hold to.” They stood together in silence, comforted just a little by the mere human touch of each other in this communion of sorrow which had so suddenly come upon them, yet knowing in their hearts that this was the very comfort that must for ever be denied them in the lonely future.