"Because," his infirmity gripped him, "I c-c-c-couldn’t." Her face softened, and the lines of her figure relaxed.
"It is my fault," she said, gazing at him through tears; "I ought to have guessed."
"Betty"—he had recovered his self-control, now that she was in danger of losing hers—"Betty, I have done you a wrong. I withheld the truth, because truth, faith, love had gone out of my life, blasted by—b-b-by——"
"By whom?" He paused, and she continued vehemently: "Mark, I want the truth. Nothing else is possible between us. What killed your faith? You have never answered that question. What changed you from the man you were to the man you are?"
She recoiled at the grim word, recoiled, too, from the expression on his face.
"You hated—your brother?" The words fell from quivering lips. He saw that she was about to swoop on the truth he had hidden so long. He was impotent to avert discovery. She came very slowly towards him, her eyes fixed on his. The expression in them bewildered him. She raised both her arms and laid her hands upon his shoulders.
"Always," he answered. "To me you came out of Paradise, and brought the best part of it with you."
"I loved you—always: as child, as boy, as man."
She smiled piteously. "As child, as girl, as woman I have loved—you. And yet loving me like that you could believe that I loved him. Ah, love is blind indeed." She held him with her eyes and hands, speaking softly and quickly: "And because you loved me you gave him what he lacked. That was like you. But did it never strike you that I might find out?"
"Not till too late. Betty, I have behaved like a fool. I gave him that sermon which I would have given my right hand to preach. But I had not foreseen its effect. Having given it, I could not take it back." He went on to describe his breakdown, the scene with Ross and the doctors, the silence which he dared not break, his slow recovery, the renascence of his hopes and their destruction. A dozen times his stammer stopped him, as many times he was made aware that this abhorred weakness bound him the closer to the woman who loved him. When he had finished his story she looked up.
Above, the song of the pines rose and fell in melancholy cadence. The day was hot, and would become hotter, but here in this sylvan temple the air flowed in cool and fragrant currents. Mark was silent, reflecting that always he had known this hour would come. From the moment he had read Archibald’s letter announcing his engagement, Destiny, with the leer of some hideous gargoyle, had decreed that he should hate his brother and love his brother’s wife. Up to the present moment both passions had been controlled and confined. The unforeseen had turned them loose.