"He can do that only by killing me," he returned. "I will pray for
that. But do you go, Helen. I will try to bear my misery for your
sake."
He followed her from the room with eyes out of which looked the very
demon of silent despair.
I will not further attempt to set forth his feelings. The
incredible, the impossible, had become a fact-AND HE WAS THE MAN. He
who knows the relief of waking from a dream of crime to the
jubilation of recovered innocence, to the sunlight that blots out
the thing as untrue, may by help of that conceive the misery of a
delicate nature suddenly filled with the clear assurance of horrible
guilt. Such a misery no waking but one that annihilated the past
could ever console. Yes, there is yet an awaking--if a man might but
attain unto it--an awaking into a region whose very fields are full
of the harmony sovereign to console, not merely for having
suffered--that needs little consoling, but for having inflicted the
deepest wrong.
The moment Helen was out of sight, Leopold drew a small silver box
from an inner pocket, eyed it with the eager look of a hungry
animal, took from it a portion of a certain something, put it in his
mouth, closed his eyes, and lay still.
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