“Why did you tell me all this?”

“Because I love you, Anita.  I want you to marry me.”

“What!  After that?”

“That, or something similar, is in many men’s lives.  They don’t tell it, that’s the difference.  I ’m not taking any credit for telling you this.  I’m ashamed to the bottom of my soul, and when I look at your bandaged arm I’m suicidal.  Peter Byrne urged me to tell you.  He said I couldn’t get away with it; some time or other it would come out.  Then he said something else.  He said you’d probably understand, and that if you married me it was better to start with a clean slate.”

No love, no passion in the interview now.  A clear statement of fact, an offer—­his past against hers, his future with hers.  Her hand was steady now.  The light in the priest’s house had been extinguished.  The chill of the mountain night penetrated Anita’s white furs; and set her—­or was it the chill?—­to shivering.

“If I had not told you, would you have married me?”

“I think so.  I’ll be honest, too.  Yes.”

“I am the same man you would have married.  Only—­more honest.”

“I cannot argue about it.  I am tired and cold.”

Stewart glanced across the valley to where the cluster of villas hugged the mountain-side There was a light in his room; outside was the little balcony where Marie had leaned against the railing and looked down, down.  Some of the arrogance of his new virtue left the man.  He was suddenly humbled.  For the first time he realized a part of what Marie had endured in that small room where the light burned.

“Poor little Marie!” he said softly.

The involuntary exclamation did more for him than any plea he could have made.  Anita rose and held out her hand.

“Go and see her,” she said quietly.  “You owe her that.  We’ll be leaving here in a day or so and I’ll not see you again.  But you’ve been honest, and I will be honest, too.  I—­I cared a great deal, too.”

“And this has killed it?”

“I hardly comprehend it yet.  I shall have to have time to think.”

“But if you are going away—­I’m afraid to leave you.  You’ll think this thing over, alone, and all the rules of life you’ve been taught will come—­”

“Please, I must think.  I will write you, I promise.”

He caught her hand and crushed it between both of his.

“I suppose you would rather I did not kiss you?” humbly.

“I do not want you to kiss me.”

He released her hand and stood looking down at her in the darkness.  If he could only have crushed her to him, made her feel the security of his love, of his sheltering arms!  But the barrier of his own building was between them.  His voice was husky.

“I want you to try to remember, past what I have told you, to the thing that concerns us both—­I love you.  I never loved the other woman.  I never pretended I loved her.  And there will be nothing more like that.”