It was
true that he was engaged to her, and that he had not yet found a way of
breaking his engagement.
As she read the letter over Charity understood what it must have cost
him to write it. He was not trying to evade an importunate claim; he was
honestly and contritely struggling between opposing duties. She did not
even reproach him in her thoughts for having concealed from her that
he was not free: she could not see anything more reprehensible in his
conduct than in her own. From the first she had needed him more than he
had wanted her, and the power that had swept them together had been
as far beyond resistance as a great gale loosening the leaves of the
forest.... Only, there stood between them, fixed and upright in the
general upheaval, the indestructible figure of Annabel Balch....
Face to face with his admission of the fact, she sat staring at the
letter. A cold tremor ran over her, and the hard sobs struggled up into
her throat and shook her from head to foot. For a while she was caught
and tossed on great waves of anguish that left her hardly conscious of
anything but the blind struggle against their assaults.
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