"But that is only a phase," he persisted. "You have had terrible
trials, I know, and they must have affected your outlook on life,
but you are still young, and while one is young life is always
worth having."
"I thought so once," she assented. "I don't now."
"But there must be--there will be compensations," he assured her.
"I know that just now you are suffering from the reaction--after
all you have gone through. The memory of that will pass."
"The memory of what I have gone through will never pass," she
answered.
There was a moment's intense silence, a silence pregnant with
reminiscent drama. The little room rose up before his memory
--the woman's hopeless, hating eyes, the quivering thread of steel,
the dead man's mocking words. He seemed at that moment to see
into the recesses of her mind. Was it remorse that troubled
her, he wondered? Did she lack strength to realise that in that
half-hour at the inquest he had placed on record for ever his
judgment of her deed? Even to think of it now was morbid.
Although he would never have confessed it even to himself, there
was growing daily in his mind some idea of reward. She had never
thanked him--he hoped that she never would--but he had surely a
right to claim some measure of her thoughts, some light place in
her life.
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