A little gesture, triumphant in its suggestion, finished her sentence.

“What I see is this,” Ford answered, thickly, “that I’m to hold my life at the cost of your degradation.”

“Degradation?  That’s a hard word.  But as applied to me—­I don’t know what it means.”

“Isn’t it degradation?—­to enter into a marriage in which you put no love?”

There was a kind of superb indifference in her answer.

[Illustration:  “I’m to hold my life at the cost of your degradation”]

“You may call it degradation if you choose.  I shouldn’t.  As long as you go free, you can call my action anything you like.  I dare say,” she admitted, “you’re quite right, from the highest moral—­and modern—­point of view; but that doesn’t appeal to me.  You see—­you’ve got to make allowances for it—­I’m not a child of your civilization.  I’m not a child of any civilization at all.  At best I’m like the wild creature that submits to being tamed because it doesn’t know what else to do—­but remains wild at heart.  I used to think I could come into your system of law and order if any one would take me.  But now I know I shall always be outside it.  The very word you’ve just used of me shows me that.  You say I’m to be degraded—­it’s your civilized point of view.  I have no comprehension of that whatever.  Because I love you I want to save you.  I don’t care anything about the means so long as I reach the end.  To undo the harm I’ve done to you I’d freely give my body to be burned; so why shoudn’t I—?  No, no,” she cried, as he made as though he would approach her, “keep away.  Don’t come near me!  I can only talk to you like this—­at a distance.  I shall never say these things again—­but I want to tell you—­to explain to you—­I should like you to understand.”

She repeated herself haltingly because, as Ford held back from approaching her, a sudden spasm passed over his face, while he hung his head, and compressed his lips in a way that made him seem surprisingly boyish all at once, and touched that maternal tenderness in her that had always formed such a large part of her yearning over him.  It was the kind of tenderness that steadied her own nerve, and kept her dry-eyed and strong, as she saw him reel to a chair, and flinging his arms on the table beside it, bow himself down on them, while his form shook convulsively.  She had no shame for him.  She understood perfectly that the pressure of years had been brought to bear on the complex emotions of the moment—­to which reaction from his brief anger and his bitter words added an element of remorse—­to cause this honest, manly nature that had never made any pretence of being stronger than it was, to give way to the instant’s weakness.  She was sure he would never have done it in the presence of any one but her, and she was thrilled with a curious joy at this proof of their spiritual intimacy.  What was difficult was not the keeping of her own self-control, but the