The Helpmate Part 88

She sat down on the couch, and made room for him beside her.

"I don't want," she said, "to know more than I do."

"I'm afraid you must know. When you do know you won't talk about taking me back."

"I have taken you back."

"Not yet. I'd no business to come back at all, without telling you."

"Tell me, then," she said.

"I can't. I don't know how."

She put her hand on his.

"Don't," he said, "don't. I'd rather you didn't touch me."

She looked at him and smiled, and her smile cut him to the heart.

"Walter," she said, "are you afraid of me?"

"Yes."

"You needn't be."

"I am. I'm afraid of your goodness."

She smiled again.

"Do you think I'm good?"

"I know you are."

"You don't know how you're hurting me."

"I've always hurt you. And I'm going to hurt you more."

"You only hurt me when you talk about my goodness. I'm not good. I never was. And I never can be, dear, if you're afraid of me. What is it that I _must know_?"

His voice sank.

"I've been unfaithful to you. Again."

"With whom?" she whispered.

"I can't tell you. Only--it wasn't Maggie."

"When was it?"

"I think it was that Sunday--at Scarby."

"Why do you say you think?" she said gently. "Don't you know?"

"No. I don't know much about it. I didn't know what I was doing."

"You can't remember?"

"No. I can't remember."

"Then--are you sure you _were_--?"

"Yes. I think so. I don't know. That's the horrible part of it. I don't know, I can't remember anything about it. I must have been drinking."

She took his hand in hers again. "Walter, dear, don't think about it.

Don't think it was possible. Just put it all out of your head and forget about it."

"How can I when I don't know?" He rose. "See here--I oughtn't to look at you--I oughtn't to touch you--I oughtn't to live with you, as long as I don't know. You don't know, either."

"No," she said quietly. "I don't know. Does that matter so very much when I understand?"

"Ah, if you could understand. But you never could."

"I do. Supposing I had known, do you think I should not have forgiven you?"

"I'm certain you wouldn't. You couldn't. Not that."

"But," she said, "I did know."

His mouth twitched. His eyelids dropped before her gaze.

"At least," she said, "I thought--"

"You thought _that_?"

"Yes."

"What made you think it?"

"I saw her there."

"You saw her? You thought that, and yet--you would have let me come back to you?"

"Yes. I thought that."

As he stood before her, shamed, and uncertain, and unhappy, the new soul that had been born in her pleaded for him and a.s.sured her of his innocence.

"But," she said again, "I do not think it now."

"You--you don't believe it?"