"
"Yes. But not for you."
The whole structure of glowing logs fell down, raising a small
turmoil of white ashes and sparks. The tiny crash seemed to wake
her up thoroughly. She turned her head upon the cushion to look at
me.
"It's a very extraordinary thing, we two coming together like
this," she said with conviction. "You coming in without knowing I
was here and then telling me that you can't very well go out of the
room. That sounds funny. I wouldn't have been angry if you had
said that you wouldn't. It would have hurt me. But nobody ever
paid much attention to my feelings. Why do you smile like this?"
"At a thought. Without any charlatanism of passion I am able to
tell you of something to match your devotion. I was not afraid for
your sake to come within a hair's breadth of what to all the world
would have been a squalid crime. Note that you and I are persons
of honour. And there might have been a criminal trial at the end
of it for me. Perhaps the scaffold."
"Do you say these horrors to make me tremble?"
"Oh, you needn't tremble. There shall be no crime. I need not
risk the scaffold, since now you are safe. But I entered this room
meditating resolutely on the ways of murder, calculating
possibilities and chances without the slightest compunction.
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