--And then before my very eyes, they would fade, they
would fade, dimmer and dimmer--they would flicker and go out, and I
would be back again, with tawdriness and shame and vileness fast about
me--and I would pay."
"But now you have paid enough," Daphne told him. "Oh, surely,
surely--you have paid enough. Now you have come home--now you can
forget."
"No," said Stephen Fane. "Now I must go."
"Go?" At the small startled echo he raised his head.
"What else?" he asked. "Did you think that I would stay?"
"But I do not want you to go." Her lips were white, but she spoke very
clearly.
Stephen Fane never moved but his eyes, dark and wondering, rested on her
like a caress.
"Oh, my little Loveliness, what dream is this?"
"You must not go away again, you must not."
"I am baser than I thought," he said, very low. "I have made you pity
me, I who have forfeited your lovely pity this long time. It cannot even
touch me now. I have sat here like a dark Othello telling tales to a
small white Desdemona, and you, God help me, have thought me tragic and
abused. You shall not think that. In a few minutes I will be gone--I
will not have you waste a dream on me. Listen--there is nothing vile
that I have not done--nothing, do you hear? Not clean sin, like
murder--I have cheated at cards, and played with loaded dice, and stolen
the rings off the fingers of an Argentine Jewess who--" His voice
twisted and broke before the lovely mercy in the frightened eyes that
still met his so bravely.
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