"And--Gillian?" she said firmly, all the Craven obstinacy in her voice, and waited long for his answer. When it came it was flat, monotonous.
"I cannot marry her. I cannot marry--anybody."
"Are you married already?" The question escaped before she could bite it back. With a quickening heartbeat she awaited an outburst, a retort that would end everything. But he answered quietly, in the same toneless voice: "No, I am not married."
She caught at the loop-hole it seemed to offer. "If there is no bar----" she began eagerly, but he cut her short. "I have done with all that sort of thing," he said harshly.
"Why?" she persisted, with a doggedness that matched his own. "If you have known sorrow, does that necessarily mean that you can never again know happiness? Must you for a--a memory, turn your back irrevocably on any chance that may restore your peace of mind? I believe that such a chance is waiting for you."
He looked at her with strange intentness. "For me...." he smiled bitterly. "If you only knew!"
"I only know that you are hesitating at what most men would jump at," she retorted, suddenly conscious of strained nerves and feeling as if she were battering impotently against a granite rock-face. His hands clenched but he did not reply and swift contrition fell on her. She turned to him impulsively. "Forgive me, Barry. I shouldn't have said that, but I want this thing so desperately. I am convinced that it would mean happiness for you, for you both. And when I think of Gillian--alone--fighting against the world----" She broke down completely and he gripped her hands with a strength that made her wince.
"She'll never do that if I can help it," he said swiftly.
Miss Craven looked up with sudden hope. "You will ask her?" she whispered expectantly. He put her from him gently. "I can promise nothing. I must think," he said deliberately, and there was in his face a look that held her silent.
With uncertain feelings she watched him leave the room.... Inevitable re-action set in, doubts overwhelmed her. Had she done what was best or had she blundered irretrievably? She went unsteadily to a chair, extraordinarily tired, exhausted in her new weakness by the emotional strain through which she had passed. She was beginning to be a little aghast at what she had done, at the force that she had set moving. And yet she had been actuated by the highest motives. She believed implicitly that the joining of the two lives whose future was all her care would result in the ultimate happiness of both. They had grown used to each other. A closer relationship than that of guardian and ward seemed, in view of the comparatively slight difference in age, a natural outcome of the intimacy into which they had been thrown. It was not without precedent; similar events had happened before and would doubtless happen again, she argued, striving to stifle the still lingering doubt that whispered that she had gone beyond her prerogative. And what she had done was in a way inexplicable even to herself. All through she had felt that involuntary forceful impulse that had been almost fatalistic, she had urged through the prompting of an inward conviction. She had perhaps attached too much importance to it, her own wish had been magnified until it assumed the appearance of fate.