"I should love
you less, if you did not understand me so well."
"It is more than understanding. It is much more."
He remembered how he had taken her slender body in his arms to warm
her when she had been almost dead of the cold and dampness, and a mad
impulse was in him to press her to him now, as he had done then, and
to feel her small fair head lay itself upon his shoulder peacefully,
as it surely would. He sat upright and pressed one hand upon the other
rather harder than before.
"You believe it, do you not?" she asked. "Why is your face so hard?"
"Because I am bound hand and foot, like a man who is carried to
execution."
"But we can always love each other just the same," Sabina said, and
her voice was warm and soft.
"Yes, always, and that will not make it easier to live without you,"
he answered rather harshly.
"You need not," she said, after an instant's pause.
He turned suddenly, startled, not understanding, wondering what she
could mean. She met his eyes quite quietly, and he saw how deep and
steady hers were, and the light in them.
"You need not live without me unless you please," she said.
"But I must, since I cannot marry you, and you understand that I could
not be divorced--"
"My mother has just told me that no decent man will marry me, because
all the world knows that I stayed at the palace that night.
Pages:
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380