The Man in Possession — page 307: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

302 THE MAN IN POSSESSION, could never understand. It would be no use to go back, or explain—now.” ‘“When I leave you,” he said, ‘‘I hope you will . think that still. It will be some comfort.” There was a moment of dead silence. He was trying to nerve himself to say two words—those two words hardest and saddest of all that human hearts can wring from human lips. And she knew it, and thought with poignant regret of the folly and pride which had spoilt his life—as 1t would also spoil her own. ‘If you despised me or hated me,” he went on, after that brief, painful silence, ‘‘it would only be what I deserve. I see it now—I saw it when it was too late. I had no right to act as I did, and you had every right to resent it.” ‘‘ Need we allude to that again?” she said gently. ‘‘T said I forgave it all, and I meant it.” ‘‘Then there is nothing more to say except— ‘Good-bye.’ ” She held out her hand in silence. He took it, and bent his head, and she felt his lips, cold as the hand itself, rest there for a second’s space. Then it fell, inert and lifeless, on the black gown, and lay. there as if carved in stone. He walked unsteadily away, seeing nothing before or around him but blank darkness. The distance to the door was as an endless journey to which the stormy throbs of his heart seemed beating a funeral march. Ere he closed the door he looked back. She was sitting there white and still, the firelight flashing as COMicloe (Sri C(O)