Melville took her hands mechanically, and for a second or so they stood looking with a sort of discovery into each other’s eyes.
“Tell him,” she said, with an astounding perfection of simplicity, “to come back to me. There can be no other thing than what I am. Tell him to come back to me!”
“And——?”
“Tell him that.”
“Forgiveness?”
“No! Tell him I want him. If he will not come for that he will not come at all. If he will not come back for that”—she halted for a moment—“I do not want him. No! I do not want him. He is not mine and he may go.”
His passive hold of her hands became a pressure. Then they dropped apart again.
“You are very good to help us,” she said as he turned to go.
He looked at her. “You are very good to help me,” she said, and then: “Tell him whatever you like if only
