"But you love him. My dear, I know that you have always loved him."

Marie looked up, the tears wet on her cheeks, her sobbing suddenly quiet. "Do you know what I told him?" she asked, and then, as he did not answer, she added in a whisper: "I told him that I loved you."

It seemed to Feathers as if all the world stood still in that moment--as if he and Marie were alone in a great silence, looking into one another's eyes.

His heart was thumping up in his throat, almost choking him, and his hands were clenched in the pockets of his shabby tweed jacket.

The light in the center of the room fell full on his ugly face, cruelly revealing all its grimness and pallor, and the trembling tenderness of his mouth. He made no attempt to ignore her meaning.

It was too great a moment for pretense.

She was so small, such a child, that his pa.s.sionate love died down into something infinitely gentle as he spoke.

"Do you know what it means, Marie? Do you realize that you will break Miss Chester's heart, and ruin your husband's life? Do you know what everyone will say of you and me?"

She broke in feverishly.

"I don't mind what they say. I've never had any happiness, and I could be happy with you--I am always happy with you ... Oh, I thought you loved me," she added with a broken little cry.

It seemed a long time before he answered, and then he said in a voice that was slow and labored with emotion:

"I love you as the sweetest and dearest woman I have ever met. I love you for your kind friendship to me, and because you did not shrink from my ugly face. I love you because you're as far above me in goodness and purity as the stars." He stopped with a hard breath before he went on again. "You've been my ideal of everything I hold sacred, and you are asking me to trample it all underfoot and drag it in the mud."

He broke off jaggedly, and Marie said in a whisper:

"If--if you love me like that, don't you know--can't you _see_--how happy we could be together?"

Did he know? He had dreamed so often of an impossible future in which she might be his, of long days spent with her, and hours of contentment, of the touch of her lips on his, and the sound of her footsteps pacing beside him for the rest of his life and hers; but they had only been dreams--dreams that could never come true.

He sought desperately in his mind for words with which to answer her appeal, but what poor things were mere words in comparison with his longing to take her in his arms and kiss the smiles back to her tremulous lips.

And she said again desperately, fighting for her ground inch by inch:

"Chris never loved me. It was only the money he wanted ... oh, you know it was!"

It was hard to find a reply to such an unanswerable argument.

"Years ago, before I knew you, Marie," Feathers said presently, "Chris saved me from what might have been lifelong disgrace. He was the best friend a man ever had. What would you think of me if I paid my debt to him by taking his wife? Oh, my dear, think what it would mean ..."

She thought she heard a note of yielding in his voice, and she reached out a trembling hand and put it into his.

"If you go away I shall have n.o.body left. Oh, I can't bear you to go away!"

He kept the little hand in his very gently. He went on talking to her as if she had been a child. He tried to show her the tragic impossibility of it all--the hopelessness. He spoke to her of the past, of the days when she and Chris has been children together; he pleaded for his friend as eloquently as he might have pleaded for himself, and at last he stopped, struck to the heart by her silence.

She drew her hand away.

"You mean ... all this means ... that you don't love me."

Feathers bit his lip till the blood came. Not love her! When every drop of blood in his body was on fire with love for her; when he was holding himself in with a grip of iron from taking her into his arms. He laughed drearily as he answered:

"If I loved you less I should not try to send you away."

She looked up then, the blood rushing in a crimson wave to her face. He knew he had but to say the word and she would leave everything for him, and the knowledge tore his heart with pride and humility. He knew he had but to hold out his arms and she would come to them as a child might, trusting him, confident of happiness.

And it was because she was such a child that he would not, dare not! She did not understand what she was doing, he kept telling himself. She did not realize into what a pitiful trap she was trying to lead both him and herself. His heart ached with tenderness for her, even while it bled with the wounds of the battle he was fighting.

There were moments when nothing seemed to matter but this girl and her wistful eyes--moments when honor was but a paltry rag, and friendship a thing at which to scoff--moments when he told himself that he had as much right to happiness as anyone in the world, and that it was here for the taking--moments when he would have sold his immortal soul to hold her to his heart and kiss her lips. He felt his resistance breaking down, and in despair he broke out:

"Mrs. Lawless, let me take you home ... I beg of you--for both our sakes ..."

She stood quite still, her hands tearing at her gloves, then suddenly she looked up at him with burning eyes.

He could read the thoughts behind those eyes--shame that he was sending her away, and shame because she had come. Feathers stifled a groan as he turned from her.

Then--"I am quite ready," she said, in the faintest whisper.

He stood aside to let her pa.s.s, but as she reached him she swayed and would have fallen fainting to the floor but for his arms.

He caught her and held her as if she had been a child Her eyes were closed, and her face and lips quite colorless.

Feathers put her down in the shabby armchair in which Chris had so often sat and grumble and tried to force water between her lips.

Her hat had fallen off, and there was an ugly bruise on her forehead where last night she had fallen against the window sill.

It stood out painfully against the whiteness of her skin.

And suddenly Feathers' strength gave way. He gathered her into his arms as if he could never let her go. He kissed her hair and the ugly bruise that had broken him down. He kissed her hands and the unconscious face that rested against his shabby coat.

For a moment at least she was his--even if in all his life he never saw her again.

Even Samson was robbed of his strength by a woman.

And even as he held her Feathers felt her stir in his arms, and the fluttering of her breath, and he released her a little, watching the color creep back to her face with pa.s.sionate eyes.

Then her lids lifted, and she saw him bending over her.

She struggled free of him and sat up, pushing the dark hair from her forehead. She tried to remember what had happened, but it only came back to her slowly and with difficulty; then she made a movement to rise to her feet.

"I forgot ... you asked me to go ..."

"Marie!" said Feathers brokenly.

She looked up, a wild hope in her eyes, then she fell forward into his arms.

"Oh, do you love me?--say you love me ..."

"My darling--my beloved ..."

Everything was forgotten. The world was at a standstill. In his arms she felt that she had come home at last to rest and perfect happiness.