Page:The Other House (London, William Heinemann, 1896), Volume 2.djvu/195

Rh could do for you, and you let me, always, and she did. So I thought it would go on, for wasn't it happiness enough? But all the horrible things—I didn't know them till to-day! There they were—so near to us; and there they closed over her, and—oh!" She turned away in a fresh wild spasm, inarticulate and distracted.

They wandered in silence, as if it made them more companions; but at last Tony said: "She was a little radiant, perfect thing. Even if she had not been mine you would have loved her." Then he went on, as if feeling his way through his thickest darkness: "If she had not been mine she wouldn't be lying there as I've seen her. Yet I'm glad she was mine!" he said.

"She lies there because I loved her and because I so insanely showed it. That's why it's I who killed her!" broke passionately from Jean.

He answered nothing till he quietly and gently answered: "It was I who killed her."

She roamed to and fro, slowly controlling herself, taking this at first as a mere torment like her own. "We seem beautifully eager for the guilt!"

"It doesn't matter what any one else seems.