That," he ended fiercely, "is why I am
so angry, so desperate at the slight you have put upon yourself for
my sake - for me, who would have sacrificed life and honour and
everything I hold of any account, to keep you up there, enthroned
not only in my own eyes, but in the eyes of every man."
He paused, and looked at her and she at him. She was still very
white, and one of her long, slender hands was pressed to her bosom
as if to contain and repress tumult. But her eyes were smiling,
and yet it was a smile he could not read; it was compassionate,
wistful, and yet tinged, it seemed to him, with mockery.
"I suppose," he said, "it would be expected of me in the
circumstances to seek words in which to thank you for what you have
done. But I have no such words. I am not grateful. How could I be
grateful? You have destroyed the thing that I most valued in this
world."
"What have I destroyed?" she asked him.
"Your own good name; the respect that was your due from all men."
"Yet if I retain your own?"
"What is that worth?" he asked almost resentfully.
"Perhaps more than all the rest." She took a step forward and set
her hand upon his arm. There was no mistaking now her smile. It
was all tenderness, and her eyes were shining.
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