Part 51 (1/2)
”And save your own life as well?” she asked hi? My life was forfeit already
If I go back to Algiers they will assuredly hang me Asad will see to it, and not all my sea-hawks could save ain upon the divan, and sat there rocking her aresture of hopeless distress
”I see,” she said ”I see I a this fate upon you When you sent Lionel upon that errand you voluntarily offered up your life to restore ht to do this without first consulting ht to suppose I would be a party to such a thing I will not accept the sacrifice I will not, Sir Oliver”
”Indeed, you have no choice, thank God!” he answered her ”But you are astray in your conclusions It is I alone who have brought this fate upon myself It is the very proper fruit of my insensate deed It recoils upon ed his shoulders as if to disularly tientle, ”it were perhaps too ive ht you?”
”I think,” she answered hiiveness of you”
”Of me?”
”For my unfaith, which has been the source of all Forburnt unread your letter and the proof of your innocence that accompanied it”
He suided you Even though I had not done the thing imputed to ht, for evil I am--I must be
These are your oords But do not think that I nize their truth”
She stretched out her hands to him ”If if I were to say that I have come to realize the falsehood of all that?”
”I should understand it to be the charity which your pitiful heart extends to one in my extremity Your instinct was not at fault”
”It was! It was!”
But he was not to be driven out of his conviction He shook his head, his countenance gloomy ”No man as not evil could have done by you what I have done, however deep the provocation I perceive it clearly now--as s”
”Oh, why are you so set on death?” she cried upon a despairing note
”I am not,” he answered with a swift resumption of his more habitual manner ”'Tis death that is so set on ret I face it as we ifts froladdened alive-ness”
She rose suddenly, and ca very close to hiive each other, you and I, Oliver,” she said ”And since forgiveness effaces all, let let all that has stood between us these last five years be now effaced”
He caught his breath as he looked down into her white, straining face
”Is it io back five years? Is it io back to where we stood in those old days at Godolphin Court?”
The light that had suddenly been kindled in his face faded slowly, leaving it grey and drawn His eyes grew clouded with sorrow and despair
”Who has erred enerations that coates of the past are tight-barred against us”
”Then let us leave them so Let us turn our backs upon that past, you and I, and let us set out afresh together, and so make amends to each other for what our folly has lost to us in those years”
He set his hands upon her shoulders, and held her so at ar her with very tender eyes