tempted to touch her.

"I came--because I wanted to see you so that I could not stay away--I
came because I wished to convince myself again that you loved Henry, so
that there could be no shadow of uncertainty in what I intended to do."

"Well?"

"I saw that, whether you love him or not, you desire that I shall think
that you do--and so at dinner I played for my own pleasure, the die
being cast, for something else had occurred before dinner which makes it
of no consequence to my decision whether you do or do not love him now.
It is Henry's great love for you which is the factor, because to part
from you he says would end his life. I could not commit the frightful
cruelty and dishonor of upsetting his plans, since you are originally to
blame for concealing the truth from him, and I am to blame for abetting
you. He trusts us both as you said."

Sabine was trembling; her whole fabric of peace and happiness in the
future seemed to be falling to pieces like a pack of cards.

She could only look at Michael with piteous violet eyes out of which all
the defiance had gone. Her slender figure swayed a little, and she
leaned against the mantelpiece.

"My God!" he said, with a fresh clenching of his strong hands, "I would
not have believed I could have suffered so. As it is the last time we
shall ever talk to one another perhaps--I want you to know about
things--to hear it all. I would like to ask you again to forgive me for
long ago, but I suppose you feel that is past forgiveness?" His face had
a look of pleading; then he went on as she did not respond. "If you had
not left me, I would soon have made you forget that you had been angry,
as I thought indeed I had already done when you seemed to be contented
at least in my arms. But I would have caressed you into complete
forgetfulness in time--" here his voice vibrated with a deep note of
tenderness, which thrilled her--but yet she could not speak.

"And what had begun just in mad passion would have grown into real love
between us--for we were made for one another Sabine--did you never
think of that?--just the same sort of natures--vigorous and all alive
and passionate, with the same joy of life in our blood. We would have
been supremely happy. But I was so frightfully arrogant in those days,
and when I spoke I was deadly ashamed of myself, and then furious with
you for daring to defy me and going after all. No one had ever disobeyed
me. But it was shame really which made me