Then Arnold spoke.
"You dear woman!" he said. "You dear woman!"
She kept her head bowed like that and did not answer. It was his
happiest moment. One might say he had lived for this. Her tears fell
upon his hand, a kind of baptism for his heart. He spoke again.
"We must bear this," he panted. "It is--less cruel--than it seems. You
don't know how much it is for the best."
She lifted her wet face. "You mustn't talk," she faltered.
"What difference--" he did not finish the sentence. His words were too
few to waste. He paused and made another effort.
"If this had not happened I would have been--counted--among the
unfaithful," he said. "I know now. I would have abandoned--my post. And
gladly--without regret--for you."
"Ah!" Hilda cried with a vivid note of pain, "I am sorry! I am sorry!"
She gazed with a face of real tragedy at the form of her captive,
delivered to her in the bonds of death. A fresh pang visited her with
the thought that in the mystery of the ordering of things she might have
had to do with the forging of those shackles.
"My God is a jealous God," Arnold said. "He has delivered me--into His
own hands--for the honour of His name. I acknowledge--I am content.
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