Her last words both puzzled and wounded him with their
implication of a deeper sympathy between Quisante and herself than
existed or could exist between her and him. That he did not understand,
and could not without giving up his own idea of her, the May Gaston
which, as she said, he had made for himself. Was his image gone indeed?
Had Alexander Quisante's chisel altered the features beyond recognition
and till true identity was gone? Yet Alexander Quisante was the man who
had put on her the shame for which she had sobbed under the tree on that
evening at Ashwood. Before such a seeming contradiction his penetration
stood baffled. She had said then that her present life would, she
supposed, go on right to the end, and had said it as though the prospect
were unendurable; now a new and to him unnatural resignation seemed to
have come upon her, just when her present life had shown that it was not
likely to go on right to the end.
"I've prayed my husband to give up," she said, "I don't beg you not to
give up. To begin with, you wouldn't listen to me any more than he did.
Pages:
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440