For a few moments’ silence they stood facing each other on the dim landing outside his locked door.
“Nothing can slay our souls,” he repeated in a grave voice. “I do not believe you really ever have done anything to wound even your self-respect. I do not believe you are capable of it, or ever have been, or ever will be. But somebody has deeply wounded you, spiritually, and has wounded your mind to persuade you that your soul is no longer in God’s keeping. For that is a lie!”
He saw her features working with poignant emotions as though struggling to believe him.
“Souls are never lost,” he said. “Ungoverned passions of every sort merely cripple them for a space. God always heals them in the end.”
He laid his hand on the door-knob once more and lifted the latch-key.
“Don’t!” she whispered, catching his hand again, “if there should be somebody in there waiting for us!”
“There is not a soul in my rooms. My servant sleeps out.”
“There _is_ somebody there!” she said, trembling.
“Nobody, Miss Norne. Will you come in with me?”
“You and I alone together—no! oh, please—please! I am afraid!”
“Of—giving you—my c-confidence—and trust—and—and f-friendship.”
“I must not! It would destroy us both, soul and body!”
“I tell you,” he said, impatiently, “that there is no destruction of the soul—and it’s a clean comradeship anyway—a fighting friendship I ask of you—_all_ I ask; all I offer! Wherein, then, lies this peril in being alone together?”
“Because I am finding it in my heart to believe in you, trust you, hold fast to your strength and protection. And if I give way—yield—and if I make you a promise—and _if there is anybody in that room to see us and hear us—then_ we shall be destroyed, both of us, soul and body——”
He took her hands, held them until their trembling ceased.
“I’ll answer for our bodies. Let God look after the rest. Will you trust Him?”
But her face blanched as he turned the latch-key, switched on the electric light, and preceded her into the room beyond.
The place was one of those accentless, typical bachelor apartments made comfortable for anything masculine, but quite unlivable otherwise.
Live coals still glowed in the hob grate; he placed a lump of cannel coal on the embers, used a bellows vigorously and the flame caught with a greasy crackle.
