"I suppose you don't care a damn for me--that way!" he said, with a
mirthless laugh.

"What!" she whispered, bewildered by his violence. Then: "Do you mean
that you are in _love_ with me!"

"Utterly, hopelessly--" his voice broke and he stood with hands
clenched, unable to utter a word.

She sat up very straight and pale, the firelight gleaming on her neck
and shoulders. After a moment his voice came back to his choked throat:

"I love you better than anything in the world." he said in unsteady
tones. "And _that_ is what has come between us. Do you think it is
something we had better hunt down and destroy--this love that has come
between us?"

"Is--is that _true_?" she asked in the awed voice of a child.

"It seems to be," he managed to say. She slid stiffly to the floor and
stood leaning against the sofa's edge, looking at him wide-eyed as a
schoolgirl.

"It never occurred to you what the real trouble might be," he asked,
"did it?"

She shook her head mechanically.

"Well, we know now. Your court of inquiry has brought out the truth
after all."

She only stared at him, fascinated. No colour had returned to her
cheeks.

He began to pace the hearth again, lip caught savagely between his
teeth.

"You are no more amazed than I am to learn the truth," he said. "I never
supposed it was that.... And it's been that from the moment I laid eyes
on you. I know it now. I'm learning, you see--learning not to lie to
myself or to you.... Learning other things, too--God knows what--if this
is love--this utter--suffering--"

He swung on his heel and began to pace the glimmering tiles toward her:

"Discontent, apathy, unhappiness, loneliness--the hidden ache which
merely meant I missed you when you were not here--when I was not beside
you--all these are now explained before your bed of justice. Your court
has heard the truth to-night; and you, Valerie, are armed with
justice--the high, the middle, and the low."

Pale, mute, she raised her dark eyes and met his gaze.

In the throbbing silence he heard his heart heavy in his breast; and now
she heard her own, rapid, terrifying her, hurrying her she knew not
whither. And again, trembling, she covered her eyes with her hands.

"Valerie," he said, in anguish, "come back to me. I will not ask you to
love me if you cannot. Only come back. I--can't--endure it--without
you."

There was no response.

He stepped nearer, touched her hands, drew them from her face--revealin