She looked at him with her sad, uncomprehending eyes; her hands made a hopeless, helpless gesture.

“You know what you have done,” she said presently.  “And you know that it was wrong.”

“Yes, it was wrong.  But the whole thing was wrong.  Wrong from the beginning.  How are we going to make it right?”

“I don’t know, Walter.  We must do our best.”

“Yes, but what are we going to do?  What are you going to do?”

“I have told you that I am not going to leave you.”

“We are to go on, then, as we did before?”

“Yes—­as far as possible.”

“Then,” he said, “we shall still be all wrong.  Can’t you see it?  Can’t you see now that it’s all wrong?”

“What do you mean?”

“Our life.  Yours and mine.  Are you going to begin again like that?”

“Does it rest with me?”

“Yes.  It rests with you, I think.  You say we must make the best of it.  What is your notion of the best?”

“I don’t know, Walter.”

“I must know.  You say you’ll take me back—­you’ll never leave me.  What are you taking me back to?  Not to that old misery?  It wasn’t only bad for me, dear.  It was bad for both of us.”

She sighed, and her sigh shuddered to a sob in her throat.  The sound went to his heart and stirred in it a passion of pity.

“God knows,” he said, “I’d live with you on any terms.  And I’ll keep straight.  You needn’t be afraid.  Only—­See here.  There’s no reason why you shouldn’t take me back.  I wouldn’t ask you to if I’d left off caring for you.  But it wasn’t there I went wrong.  I can’t explain about Maggie.  You wouldn’t understand.  But, if you’d only try to, we might get along.  There’s nothing that I won’t do for you to make up—­”

“You can do nothing.  There are things that cannot be made up for.”

“I know—­I know.  But still—­we mightn’t be so unhappy—­perhaps, in time—­And if we had children—­”

“Never,” she cried sharply, “never!”

He had not stirred in his chair where he sat bowed and dejected.  But she drew back, flinching.

“I see,” he said.  “Then you do not forgive me.”

“If you had come to me, and told me of your temptation—­of your sin—­three years ago, I would have forgiven you then.  I would have taken you back.  I cannot now.  Not willingly, not with the feeling that I ought to have.”

She spoke humbly, gently, as if aware that she was giving him pain.  Her face was averted.  He said nothing; and she turned and faced him.

“Of course you can compel me,” she said.  “You can compel me to anything.”

“I have never compelled you, as you know.”

“I know.  I know you have been good in that way.”

“Good?  Is that your only notion of goodness?”

“Good to me, Walter.  Yes.  You were very good.  I do not say that I will not go back to you; but if I do, you must understand plainly, that it will be for one reason only.  Because I desire to save you from yourself.  To save some other woman, perhaps—­”