"You once told me I ought to take a confidante,"
she reminded him. "I don't suppose you thought I should take you,
though."
She had had her outburst; his was still to come. Yet it seemed rather as
though he acted on a deliberate purpose than was carried away by any
irresistible impulse; he spoke simply and plainly.
"I love you as I've always loved you," he said.
"I know, and I've taken advantage of it to inflict all this on you." Her
eyes rested on his for some moments, and she answered his glance. "No, I
can't escape that way. I'm not talking of running away; of course I
couldn't do that." She laughed a little and even he smiled. "But I can't
escape even in--in spirit by it. Sometimes I wish I could. It would
change the centre of my life, wouldn't it? Perhaps I shouldn't mind the
things that distress me so much now. But I can't."
"You don't love me? Well, you never did." He paused an instant and added
in a puzzled way, "Somehow."
"Yes, it's all 'somehow.' Somehow I didn't; I ought to have. Somehow I've
got where I am; and somehow, I suppose, I shall endure it.
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