I like to think that it isn't weakness or evasion, but a final act of kindness, a stand against oblivion and despair,

to let my lovers live and to unite them at the end. 

I gave them happiness, but I was not so self-serving  as to let them forgive me. 

Not quite, not yet...               

Robbie and Cecilia, still alive, still in love, sitting side by side in the library, smiling at the Trail of Arabella?  

 It's not impossible.

                                                       From Atonement