"No," Allida answered; "not to her." And she added, "I don't love her."
"This is my dying confession, so I will say the truth. No, I don't love her. She has made me so unhappy--made life so ugly."
"Then you wrote to some one whom you do love?"
"Yes," said Allida, after another pause. Her hat had loosened as she leaned her head back, and her disordered hair was about her face; she still kept her eyes closed with her expression of weary abandonment to the peace of confession.
He looked at her keenly, with most intent interest, most intent pity, and yet with a flicker of amusement in the look. She could do it. He believed her. Yet it would be as absurd as it would be tragic if she did. It wasn't a face made for tragedy; it had strayed into it by mistake.
"This some one you love," he said gently, "will it not hurt them terribly? Have you thought of that?"
He saw the tears come. They rolled slowly down her cheeks. She faintly whispered:
Haldicott could feel no amusement now, the pity was too great. He put his other hand on the hand he held.
For a moment Haldicott struggled with a half-nervous wish to laugh; relief was in the wish.
"And he knows that you love him?" he controlled his voice to ask.
"Oh, you don't understand!" cried Allida. She opened her eyes and sat upright, drawing her hand from his. "How could you understand? You think it's a sort of vengeance I'm taking--for his not loving me. I can't drag myself through explanations, indeed I can't. Of course I see that my tragedy to you must be almost farce. I must go. Why should I have told you anything? I am desecrating it all, making it all grotesque, by being still alive."
"No, no; you mustn't go yet," said Haldicott, seizing her hand firmly, yet with not too obvious a restraint. "You mustn't go, not at peace with me. You have all the evening still before you,--it's not six yet,--and it doesn't take long to kill one's self with poison. Trust me. You must trust me. Don't think about its being grotesque; most things are in certain aspects. I think that we are both behaving very naturally, considering the circumstances. The circumstances, I grant you, are a little grotesque--not the circumstance of your being still alive, but of your wishing to die. But, indeed, I shall understand, you poor child, poor sweet child, if you will explain."