The color left her face, and her eyes wavered a moment, then steadied.
“You must never say that again, Don! You must try not to think of it. I'll forgive you because I want you to forgive me for something. You know the letter you sent me from San Francisco? I burned it, unopened, right there where you are standing now. It was a cowardly thing to do, even though I thought you were in the wrong. If I had known the truth I never would have kept silent all those months. It was a great wrong I did you, Don; can you forgive me?”
He studied her face, as if he would by sheer intensity probe those luminous eyes that said everything and nothing. At last his head dropped.
“I was a fool ever to think you cared,” he said brokenly; “I knew I wasn't good enough for you. I knew it from the first, but I tried. Shall I keep on trying for your sake?”
“No, Don, not for mine. For your own, and for the sake of the girl you'll some day make your wife. But I want you to remember that I shall feel responsible for whatever happens to you. If you give up the fight and go back to the old life, I shall know it was because I failed you; if you succeed, as I believe you will, I shall be happy always in knowing that I had a little part in it. Shall we say good night?”
{Illustration: “It was a great wrong I did you Don, can you forgive me?"}
He took the hand she offered him and one of those silences followed which once having passed between a man and woman, is remembered above all spoken words, a silence in which all barriers fall away, and soul speaks to soul. It was like a great harmony quivering with beautiful things unsaid.
He left her standing in the firelight, her eyes shining strangely in her otherwise passive face. He closed the door resolutely on the light and warmth of the homelike, cheery room, and passing out to the road, miserably turned his steps toward the empty grandeur of the big house whose turreted and gabled roof broke the sky-line at the top of the Hill.