Page:The Other House (London, William Heinemann, 1896), Volume 2.djvu/210

196 head. "There are no wheels, but I can go that way."

He turned back again, heavy and uncertain; he stood wavering and wondering in her path. "What will become of you?" he asked.

"How do I know and what do I care?"

"What will become of you? what will become of you?" he went on as if he had not heard her.

"You pity me too much," she answered after an instant. "I've failed, but I did what I could. It was all that I saw—it was all that was left me. It took hold of me, it possessed me: it was the last gleam of a chance."

Paul flushed like a sick man under a new wave of weakness. "Of a chance for what?"

"To make him take her. You'll say my calculation was grotesque—my stupidity as ignoble as my crime. All I can answer is that I might none the less have succeeded. People have—in worse conditions. But I don't defend myself—I'm face to face with my mistake. I'm face to face with it forever—and that's how I wish you to see me. Look at me well!"