"I don't know whether I want to--about the gendarmes--and that terrible woman who screamed when they touched her with the handcuffs--and how ill I was----" She had begun to tremble so perceptibly that Quarren's arm tightened around her; and presently she became limp and motionless. "This--what I have told you--is a very close bond between us, isn't it?" she said. "Very close, Strelsa." "Was I much to blame?" "No." "How much?" "You should have left him long before." "Why, he was my husband! I had made a contract; I had to keep it and make the best of it." "Is that your idea?" "That was all I could see to do about it." "Don't you believe in divorce?" "Yes; but I thought he'd be killed; I thought he was a little insane. If he'd been well mentally and merely cruel and brutal I would have left him. But one can't abandon a helpless person." "Every word you utter," he said, "forges a new link in my love for you." "You don't mean--love?" "We mean the same I think--differing only in degree." "Thank you. That is nice of you." He nodded, smiling to himself; then, graver: "Is your little fortune quite gone, Strelsa?" "All gone--all of it." "I see.... And something has got to be done." "You know it has.... And I'm old before my time--tired, worn out. I can't work--I have no heart, no courage. My heart and strength were burnt out; I haven't the will to struggle; I have no capacity to endure. What am I to do?" "Not what you plan to do." "Why not? As long as I need help--and the best is offered----" "Wouldn't you take less--and me?" "Oh, Rix! I couldn't _use you_!" She turned and looked up at him, blushed, and dis-engaged herself from his arm. "I--I--you are my _friend_. I couldn't do that. I have nothing to give anybody--not even you." She smiled, tremulously--"And I suspect that as far as your fortune is concerned, you can offer me little more.... But it's sweet of you. You _are_ generous, having so little and wishing to share it with me----" "Could you wait for me, Strelsa?" "Wait? You mean until you become wealthy? Why, you dear boy, how can I?--even if it were a certainty." "Can't you hold on for a couple of years?" "Please tell me how? Why, I can't even pay my attorneys until I sell my house." He bit his lip and frowned at the sunlit water. "Besides," she said, "I haven't anything to offer you that I haven't already given you----" "I ask no more." "Oh, but you _do_!" "No, I want only what you want, Strelsa--only what you have to offer of your own accord." They fell silent, leaning forward on their knees, eyes absent, remote. "I don't see how it can be done; do you?" she said. "If you could wait----" "But Rix; I've told him that I would marry him." "Does that count?" "Yes--I don't know. I don't know how dishonest I might be.... I don't know what is going to happen. I'm so poor, Rix--you don't realise--and I'm tired and sad--old before my time--perplexed, burnt out----"