Page:Held to Answer (1916).pdf/485

 "Explain," he smiled sadly. "What a futility! What explanation could there be after what I had told her? You know a woman's heart. More firmly than any other, she would be forced to an implicit belief in what the newspapers have falsely intimated concerning our relations in the past few weeks."

"But I will go to her myself!" Marien exclaimed impetuously. "I will tell her the truth."

"Do you think she would believe you?" he asked frankly. "Could you expect any woman to believe in your sincerity under such circumstances, upon such a mission? You would not be able to believe it yourself."

"You are right!" Marien admitted after a moment of thought. "Once away from the restraining influence of your character, my true nature would reveal itself. I should hate her! I do hate her! No, I could not go!"

"And so, you see,"—John did not finish the sentence but had recourse to a helpless smile and a pathetic shrug of the shoulders.

Marien lowered her veil. The interview was running on and on. It must come to an end.

"It all becomes uncanny," she exclaimed. "There is too much converging upon your heart. There must come a rift in the clouds. I have submitted to your compelling altruism but only for the present. If something does not happen within a reasonable limit of time, I shall positively and dangerously explode!"

John smiled at the vehemence with which she spoke.

"But in the meantime—silence!" he adjured impressively.

"Yes," she assented reluctantly. "But at the same time I shall not know one gleam of happiness, one moment's freedom from mental anguish until your vindication is flung widely to the world."