"Until lately," she was saying, and she was not saying at all what she
meant to say; but here lately a change was taking place; something had
come into her feeling for him that was new and strange--she could not
understand--perhaps it had always been there; perhaps she was merely
becoming conscious of it. And when she thought, as she had been thinking
all day, of his long years of devotion--how badly she had requited
them--it seemed that the least she could do was to tell him that he was
now first in her life of all men--that much she could say; and perhaps
he had always been, she did not know; perhaps, now that the half-gods
were gone, it was at last the coming of the--the--She was deeply
agitated now; her voice was trembling; she faltered, and she turned
suddenly, sharply, and with a little catch in her breath, her lips and
eyes opening slowly--her first consciousness, perhaps, a wonder at his
strange silence--and dazed by her own feeling and flushing painfully,
she looked at him for the first time since she began to talk, and she
saw him staring fixedly at her with a half-agonized look, as though he
were speechlessly trying to stop her, his face white, bitter, shamed,
helpless, Not a word more dropped from her lips--not a sound. She
moved; it seemed that she was about to fall, and Crittenden started
toward her, but she drew herself erect, and, as she turned--lifting her
head proudly--the moonlight showed that her throat was drawn--nothing
more. Motionless and speechless, Crittenden watched her white shape move
slowly and quietly up the walk and grow dim; heard her light, even step
on the gravel, up the steps, across the porch, and through the doorway.
Not once did she look around.
* * * * *
He was in his room now and at his window, his face hard as stone when
his heart was parching for tears. It was true, then. He was the brute he
feared he was. He had killed his life, and he had killed his
love--beyond even her power to recall. His soul, too, must be dead, and
it were just as well that his body die. And, still bitter, still shamed
and hopeless, he stretched out his arms to the South with a fierce
longing for the quick fate--no matter what--that was waiting for him
there.