Her tone seemed to sober him, as it had so often done in his stormiest moments. The stubborn lines of his face relaxed, and he said, with an abrupt drop to docility: "You WOULD see, if you'd be as merciful as you used to be: and heaven knows I've never needed it more!"She paused a moment, moved in spite of herself by this reminder of her influence over him. Her fibres had been softened by suffering, and the sudden glimpse into his mocked and broken life disarmed her contempt for his weakness.
"I am very sorry for you--I would help you willingly; but you must have other friends, other advisers.""I never had a friend like you," he answered simply. "And besides--can't you see?--you're the only person"--his voice dropped to a whisper--"the only person who knows."Again she felt her colour change; again her heart rose in precipitate throbs to meet what she felt was coming. He lifted his eyes to her entreatingly. "You do see, don't you? You understand? I'm desperate--I'm at the end of my tether. Iwant to be free, and you can free me. I know you can. You don't want to keep me bound fast in hell, do you? You can't want to take such a vengeance as that. You were always kind--your eyes are kind now. You say you're sorry for me. Well, it rests with you to show it; and heaven knows there's nothing to keep you back. You understand, of course--there wouldn't be a hint of publicity--not a sound or a syllable to connect you with the thing. It would never come to that, you know: all I need is to be able to say definitely:'I know this--and this--and this'--and the fight would drop, and the way be cleared, and the whole abominable business swept out of sight in a second."He spoke pantingly, like a tired runner, with breaks of exhaustion between his words; and through the breaks she caught, as through the shifting rents of a fog, great golden vistas of peace and safety. For there was no mistaking the definite intention behind his vague appeal; she could have filled up the blanks without the help of Mrs. Fisher's insinuations. Here was a man who turned to her in the extremity of his loneliness and his humiliation: if she came to him at such a moment he would be hers with all the force of his deluded faith. And the power to make him so lay in her hand--lay there in a completeness he could not even remotely conjecture. Revenge and rehabilitation might be hers at a stroke--there was something dazzling in the completeness of the opportunity.