"
She hurried to him and clasped both her hands upon his arm.
"Stop!" she begged, her voice broken with sobs, "for pity's sake, stop!
It is all true. I have said it to myself a hundred times; but I will
not believe it. Don't you see," she went on, the tears on her cheek,
"that to say this is to give up everything, that if there is no truth
and no right, there is nothing for which we can respect each other, and
our love has no dignity, no quality we should be willing to name."
He looked at her with fierce, unrelenting eyes.
"Ah," he retorted cruelly, "my love is too strong for me to argue about
it."
She loosed her hold upon his arm and stepped backward a little,
regarding him despairingly. She did not mind the taunt, but the moral
fibre of her nature always responded to opposition. She broke out
excitedly into irrelevant inconsistency.
"It is right," she cried. "We were right six years ago, and you shall
not break my ideal now. I must respect you, Grant. Out of the wreck of
my life I will save that, that I can honor where I love."
She stopped to choke back the sobs which shook her voice, and to wipe
away the tears which blinded her. The sculptor stood immovable; but his
face was softened and full of yearning.
"And, oh," Helen said, the memory of sorrowful years surging upon her,
"you would not try to shake my conviction if you realized how
absolutely it has been my only support.
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