"I'm sorry," she said again. "I sat down to write you a long letter
to-day," she resumed, after an almost imperceptible hesitation. "In
fact, I really began it, or rather I wrote a good many pages, and then I
thought it would be fairer and braver to come here to you at once
instead."
He leaned up against the table for support. "My dear child, I don't in
the least understand your drift--I am bewildered."
She smiled wanly; yet the smile of one about to set forth in a cool,
reasonable way a case that needed exposition, and that necessarily must
carry conviction. "I was writing to ask you a favour. Now I have come to
ask for it in person."
"It is yours to command." He inclined his head graciously and gallantly.
"You are sweet to me, as always," she returned. "But, as you will see, I
am quite undeserving of your graciousness on this present occasion."
He laughed. "Modest as usual, my dear child! I'm afraid it's going to be
one of the tasks of my life to impress you with a sense of your own
merits."
"Please don't say any more nice things to me," she implored. "Your
kindness hurts me."
He looked hard at her again, then passed his hand across his face. "Let
me see," he said; "where were we? I confess I'm rather confused. Ah,
yes, you said you preferred that we shouldn't go to the concert."
She drew her breath hard; her bosom palpitated. "Because I want you to
set me free altogether." Her face was suddenly on fire, but an
exultation thrilled through her. At last the words had been spoken; she
was near the end.
But she felt his eyes upon her; she saw his face set in a strange
expression, half-vacant, half-surprised. "To set you free?" he murmured.
"To break off our engagement," she launched out. "Oh, I know it is
horrible of me," she went on quickly, feeling herself giving way at this
moment of trial, despite all her fortitude and all her schooling. She
saw that his lips made as if he were about to speak, but, dreading to
hear him yet, she gathered up her force and hurried on piteously.
"Please don't think that I have anything against you, that you are in
the least to blame. You have been chivalrous and kind throughout. The
responsibility must all rest on my shoulders."
He winced at the pain she was visibly enduring, the expression of her
eyes, the convulsive catch of her breath.
"But what on earth has come between us?" he exclaimed, in a sort of dull
despair. He felt no joyous glow at the return of his liberty. The
occasion seemed too miserably tragic, and his human association with
her had made him care for her enough to be deeply distressed at the
agony under which she was labouring. Even now, if it could have made her
happy, if it could have induced her to withdraw all she had said, he
would have taken her hand tenderly, and melted away every cloud between
them. "Yesterday all was well, and to-day----" He gave a gesture of
blank bewilderment.
"I have arrived at the conviction that we are not suited for each other,
that I am not the sort of woman to make your life all that it should
be."
"Oh, come," he said. "I am surprised to find such morbid nonsense
running in your head."
She was taken aback at this resistance on his part; and she rightly set
it down to pure fraternal consideration for her. She let herself go now;
best to give her explanation at full length.
"It is not a sudden impulse I have yielded to, or a passing wave of
depression," she urged, trying to conjure up the ghost of a smile again.
"Believe me, I have seen the right path before me only after the deepest
consideration."
He interrupted her with a gesture.
"But what has come between us?" he insisted again. "You do not say you
have ceased to love me."
With a great effort she looked straight at him. "Yes," she said with
steady voice, and no physical flinching. "I have ceased to love you. I
searched into my heart before it was too late, and I found my affections
had gone to another."
A flash of understanding seemed to come to him. "Mr. Shanner!" he
exclaimed.
She averted her eyes. "He was my friend before I knew you," she pleaded,
as if driven to defence.
"I see now you are perfectly serious," he murmured, hurt at last, and
firmly believing her. "Does love come and go in women with such
momentary capriciousness?"
"Perhaps," she said with a weird dreaminess. "It comes and goes like the
blossoming of a flower in the sunlight--beautiful for the day or two it
lives. My love for you is dead. I should not be happy with you, so why
make the pretence? I should not ask you to forgive me, only I am not
worth your remembrance for any reason. Let us shake hands and part not
too bitterly."
He stood silent, his head bowed. There was no thought in his mind, only
a sense of shame and of poignant regret.
"Believe me, it is for the best," she resumed, trying to smile. "And be
assured, the guilty party alone shall be condemned, should the world
discuss us!" She held out her hand. He took it and held it gently, in
sign that he bore her no ill-will.