‘Isabel,’ he said, with forced gentleness, ‘can’t you even try to understand? I am sorry. Yes; it is true what you say. We belong to each other. Nothing can alter that. But I have given my word to someone else, and I must--don’t you see?--having struck the bargain, I must keep it. Make it a little easy for me, Isabel, though God knows I don’t deserve it. But one wants to keep one’s self as clean as one can.’ ‘I won’t make it easy for you,’ cried the other, beginning to realize that he had entrenched himself behind a wall of determination. ‘Clean? You won’t keep yourself clean by playing the hypocrite with Gundred.’ ‘Ah, God! Poor Gundred! It is a dirty game I have played with her all along. And yet I never knew. Before God, I never understood. I meant to deal fairly, and I will deal fairly, too, as fairly as I can. The mistake was mine, and I’ll pay for it--pay for it all alone. Don’t you see, whatever happens, she must not suffer, Isabel. She--she has given me all she had to give. So much for so little, Isabel. I must never let her guess that I haven’t an equal love to give in return.’ ‘As if she will not guess it every day and hour of her life! Do you suppose you can deceive her?’ ‘At least, I can give her a decent show in the eyes of the world,’ replied Kingston, showing a really subtle knowledge of Gundred’s temperament. ‘That will be better than nothing, any way. Oh, Isabel, the whole affair is a damned horror. It’s all my fault. But we shan’t make it any easier by letting ourselves go to pieces over it. The only thing I can do now is to save myself from being any more of a brute than I can help. Yes, I know we love each other; we shall always love each other, worse luck. But we must spend the rest of our lives trying to forget it. We must kill our knowledge, Isabel. It’s the best thing we can do, damn it, for the best that is in us. I’ve made my mistake and had my fling, and come my cropper; now I must stand the shot.’ ‘It is not as if you could,’ cried Isabel--‘not as if you could pay your debt by yourself. It falls on me, because I am a part of you. I have to pay the heaviest price of all. I have done nothing; I have made no mistake; and now I am to pay!’ He stared curiously at her excited face. ‘We pay together, then,’ he said slowly, ‘and we pay a heavy price to keep our love for each other untarnished. That is what it comes to. I’ll pay anything not to tarnish my love for you, Isabel, my opinion of you. It is all I have left. I must save that at any costs. And save a--well, a little rag of my own decency, too. You are asking me--I hate saying it, but it is true--you are asking me to dishonour both of us by dishonouring my wife. I rate our love and ourselves a little higher than that, Isabel.’