"I still wish to be kind; I feel no ill-will toward you," she said. "But you must understand that after what has happened we can't be friends again--we can't see each other.""Ah, you ARE kind--you're merciful--you always were!" He fixed his miserable gaze on her. "But why can't we be friends--why not, when I've repented in dust and ashes? Isn't it hard that you should condemn me to suffer for the falseness, the treachery of others? I was punished enough at the time--is there to be no respite for me?""I should have thought you had found complete respite in the reconciliation which was effected at my expense," Lily began, with renewed impatience; but he broke in imploringly: "Don't put it in that way--when that's been the worst of my punishment. My God! what could I do--wasn't I powerless? You were singled out as a sacrifice: any word I might have said would have been turned against you---""I have told you I don't blame you; all I ask you to understand is that, after the use Bertha chose to make of me--after all that her behaviour has since implied--it's impossible that you and Ishould meet."
He continued to stand before her, in his dogged weakness. "Is it--need it be? Mightn't there be circumstances---?" he checked himself, slashing at the wayside weeds in a wider radius. Then he began again: "Miss Bart, listen--give me a minute. If we're not to meet again, at least let me have a hearing now. You say we can't be friends after--after what has happened. But can't I at least appeal to your pity? Can't I move you if I ask you to think of me as a prisoner--a prisoner you alone can set free?"Lily's inward start betrayed itself in a quick blush: was it possible that this was really the sense of Carry Fisher's adumbrations?
"I can't see how I can possibly be of any help to you," she murmured, drawing back a little from the mounting excitement of his look.