He raised his eyes. The great pain in them, unlike any anguish she had dreamed of, smote her suddenly, and, like a magician’s staff, opened all the fountains of her nature through which her woman’s tenderness gushed forth. She rushed to him, knelt by his side, clinging to him passionately, sobbing and weeping. “Forgive me, dear, forgive me. All my life and love are yours to help and comfort you.” The tremendous revelation had come. She, the woman, was strong. He, the man, was weak. It was for her to protect and guide him through life. She felt a thrill with it as she strained him to her heart. It was the vivid solution of her life’s problem, one diametrically opposed to the processes she had blindly followed. In the pulsating happiness of finding her warm human love for him coursing through her veins, she accepted it with tearful gratitude. The god was lost in the weak, proud man, to whom she represented the infallible and divine. It was for her to lead, for him to follow. They sat long together, side by side, on this night of shock and reconciliation. “God help us all who drift,” said Hugh. “Love will guide, dear,” she answered. “Who guided her?” he asked, motioning to the paper. “We cannot judge her,” said Irene. They were nearer in thought than they had ever been, as they held silent communion over the pitiful tragedy that had shaken their lives. For each felt that its cause lay not altogether in despair at having betrayed a vital secret to a deadly enemy, who would use it to deprive her of her fortune; that it lay deeper in the roots of a human soul. For a woman, heart-poisoned by the cup of life that she drank, with its seething ingredients of love, jealousy, bitterness, fear, despair, avarice, self-contempt, hate, weariness, remorse, sense of wrong received and dealt, the curse of race, the taint of wantonness, the flavours of nobler things, late added--curdling sourly in the draught--a woman so sickened to her death, is capable of many inconsistencies, and claims at least the grave pity of the merciful. “Will you forgive me for saying those cruel words?” asked Irene, at last. “They came from me, I don’t know how.” He took her in his arms. “It is I that need the forgiveness.” “There is only one thing I would not forgive you for.” “And that?” “Ceasing to love me,” she replied. *****