He went on presently; "And will you go on living here, perhaps alone?"
"Alone, I think; yes, I shall live here; I do not find it dismal, you know."
Sir Hugh felt himself again looking reluctantly into darkness. "But--how will you manage it, Amabel?" he asked.
And her voice seemed to come, in all serenity, from the darkness; "I shall manage it."
Yes, the awe hovered near him as he realised that what, to him, meant darkness, to her meant life. She would manage it. She had managed to live through everything.
A painful analogy came to increase his sadness;--it was like having before one a martyr who had been bound to rack after rack and still maintained that strange air of keeping something it was worth while being racked for. Glancing at her it seemed to him, still more painfully, that in spite of her beauty she was very like a martyr; that queer touch of wildness in her eyes; they were serene, they were even sweet, yet they seemed to have looked on horrid torments; and those white wrappings might have concealed dreadful scars.
He took out his watch, nervously and automatically, and looked at it. He would have to walk to the station; he could catch a train.
"And may I come, sometimes, and see you?" he asked. "I'll not bother you, you know. I understand, at last. I see what a blunder--an ugly blunder--this has been on my part. But perhaps you'll let me be your friend--more really your friend than I have ever been."
And now, as he glanced at her again, he saw that the gentleness was remote no longer. It had come near like a light that, in approaching, diffused itself and made a sudden comfort and sweetness. She was too weary to smile, but her eyes, dwelling gently on him, promised him something, as, when they had dwelt with their passion of exiled love on her son, they had promised something to Augustine. She held out her hand. "We are friends," she said.
Sir Hugh flushed darkly. He stood holding her hand, looking at it and not at her. He could not tell what were the confused emotions that struggled within him; shame and changed love; awe, and broken memories of prayers that called down blessings. It was "God bless you," that he felt, yet he did not feel that it was for him to say these words to her. And no words came; but tears were in his eyes as, in farewell, he bent over her hand and kissed it.