Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/555

Rh insight. “You mean to tell Mr. Langhope yourself?”

“Yes. I mean to take the next train to town and tell him. ”

Her trembling increased so much that she had to rest her hands against the edge of the ottoman to steady herself. “But if … if after all.… Wyant should not speak?”

“Well—if he shouldn’t? Could you bear to owe our safety to him?”

“Safety!”

“It comes to that, doesn’t it, if we’re afraid to speak?”

She sat silent, letting the bitter truth of this sink into her till it poured courage into her veins.

“Yes—it comes to that,” she confessed.

“Then you feel as I do?”

“That you must go?"

“That this is intolerable!”

The words struck down her last illusion, and she rose and went over to the writing-table. “Yes—go,” she said.

He stood up also, and took both her hands, not in a caress, but gravely, almost severely.

“Listen, Justine. You must understand exactly what this means—may mean. I am willing to go on as we are now … as long as we can … because I love you … because I would do anything to spare

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