I was not to see him--either then or after--for my own sake! And do you think"-- her voice rising--"do you think that you were in any way justified in treating me so?
Do you think it was merciful to blind me and to take from me all I should ever have of comfort to look back upon?
Do you think I couldn't have borne it all ten thousand times easier if I could have seen and known the very worst?
It was my right--it was my right! How dared you take it from me?
I will never forgive you--never!" She was on her feet as the passionate protest burst from her, but she swayed as she stood and flung out her arms with a groping gesture.
"I could have borne it," she cried again wildly, piteously.

"I could have borne anything--anything--if I had only known!" She broke into a sudden, terrible sobbing, and threw herself down headlong upon the earth, clutching at the moss with shaking, convulsive fingers, and crying between her sobs for "Daddy! Daddy!" as though her agony could pierce the dividing barrier and bring him back to her.

Nick made no further attempt to help her.

He sat gazing stonily out before him in a sphinx-like stillness that never varied while the storm of her anguish spent itself at his side.
Even after her sobs had ceased from sheer exhaustion he made no movement, no sign that he was so much as thinking of her.
Only when at last she raised herself with difficulty, and put the heavy hair back from her disfigured face, did he turn slightly and hold out to her a small tin cup.
"It's only water," he said gently.

"Have some." She took it almost mechanically and drank, then lay back with closed eyes and burning head, sick and blinded by her paroxysm of weeping.
A little later she felt his hands moving about her again, but she was too spent to open her eyes.