Though she had been told that he was not to come, instinct had kept her
there; or the pathetic, aching hope against hope which lovers never part
with.
Now that he was there, her first thoughts were for his comfort. The fire
was lighted. He must eat, drink, smoke. There was never in her doings
any of the "I am doing this for you, but you ought to be doing that for
me" which belongs to so many marriages, and liaisons. She was like a
devoted slave, so in love with the chains that she never knew she wore
them. And to Laurence, who had so little sense of property, this
only served to deepen tenderness, and the hold she had on him. He
had resolved not to tell her of the new danger he ran from his own
conscience. But resolutions with him were but the opposites of what was
sure to come; and at last the words:
"They've arrested someone," escaped him.
From her face he knew she had grasped the danger at once; had divined
it, perhaps, before he spoke. But she only twined her arms round him and
kissed his lips. And he knew that she was begging him to put his love
for her above his conscience. Who would ever have thought that he
could feel as he did to this girl who had been in the arms of many! The
stained and suffering past of a loved woman awakens in some men only
chivalry; in others, more respectable, it rouses a tigerish itch, a
rancorous jealousy of what in the past was given to others.
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