"One may save--even by violence. You were too precious to be allowed to destroy yourself."
His look, so sad and strong, the look of a deep compassion, fastened itself upon her. He felt himself, indeed, possessed by a force not his own, that same force which in its supreme degree made of St. Francis "the great tamer of souls."
"Who asked you to be our judge? Neither I nor Major Warkworth owe you anything."
"No. But I owed you help--as a man--as your friend. The truth was somehow borne in upon me. You were risking your honor--I threw myself in the way."
"What--what could you know of the circumstances?" cried her choked, laboring voice. "It is unpardonable--an outrage! You know nothing either of him or of me."
She clasped her hands to her breast in a piteous, magnificent gesture, as though she were defending her lover and her love.
"I know that you have suffered much," he said, dropping his eyes before her, "but you would suffer infinitely more if--"
"If you had not interfered." Her veil had fallen over her face again. She flung it back in impatient despair. "Mr. Delafield, I can do without your anxieties."
"But not"--he spoke slowly--"without your own self-respect."
Julie's face trembled. She hid it in her hands.
He went to the farther end of the ship and stood there motionless, looking towards the land but seeing nothing. On all sides the darkness was lifting, and in the distance there gleamed already the whiteness that was Dover. His whole being was shaken with that experience which comes so rarely to cumbered and superficial men--the intimate wrestle of one personality with another. It seemed to him he was not worthy of it.
After some little time, when only a quarter of an hour lay between the ship and Dover pier, he went back to Julie.
She was sitting perfectly still, her hands clasped in front of her, her veil drawn down.
"May I say one word to you?" he said, gently.
"It is this. What I have confessed to you to-night is, of course, buried between us. It is as though it had never been said. I have given you pain. I ask your pardon from the bottom of my heart, and, at the same time"--his voice trembled--"I thank God that I had the courage to do it!"
She threw him a glance that showed her a quivering lip and the pallor of intense emotion.