apturing every mutual memory, analysing long-forgotten
scenes and motives, explaining themselves, accusing themselves, for the
joy of being forgiven--"Tell me; you loved me so much that you were
willing to give me up to him, to make me happy, and to save me;--but, if
you hadn't been going to die--oh darling!--then you would have loved me
too much to give me up, wouldn't you?"

His arm was about her, a book between them--unread, it usually was
unread--and they were sitting in the re-consecrated summer-house; Kitty
had insisted on that punishment for herself, had knelt down before her
husband there and, despite his protest, had kissed his hands, with
tears; the summer-house had become their sweetest retreat.

He answered her now swiftly, and with a little relief for the obvious
answer: "But then I couldn't have set you free, dear."

"No;" Kitty mused. "I see. But--would the fear of losing me have made
you _re-fall_ in love with me? You know you only re-fell, darling, only
knew how much you cared when you thought I was deceiving you, lying to
you, in saying that I loved you; but you would have loved me--not in
that dreadful, big, inhuman way--but loved _me_, just _me_--loved me
enough to fight for me, wouldn't you?"

He looked into her adoring, insistent eyes and a little shadow of memory
crossed his mind. Was she an altogether unambiguous angel? Was it there,
the subtlety, in her eyes, her smile; something sweet, insinuating,
insatiable? And as she fondled him, leaning close and questioning, it
was as though a little eddy of dust from the outer world blew into
Paradise through an unguarded gate. Well, why should not the dear angel
have a little dust on its shining hair? It was a foolish angel, as he
knew; and it lived for love, as he knew; and women who did that and who
didn't get loved enough grew to look subtle--he remembered the swift
train of thought. But Kitty was loved enough, so that there must be no
subtlety to make her beauty stranger and less sweet, and in Paradise one
forgot the outer world and need not consider it again; it was done with
him and he with it, so that he answered, smiling, "I would have loved
you for yourself; I would have fought for you."

"And won me," she murmured, hiding her face on his breast. "Oh, Nick, if
only it had been sooner, sooner."

Her suffering sanctified even the shadow; but he remembered it;
remembered that the dust had blown in. It lay, though so lightly, on the
angel's h