“Must you?” said she.
“Unless you positively forbid it.”
“Stop, Godfrey,” she said. And they did stop in the path, for now she no longer thought of putting an end to her embarrassment by overtaking her companions. “If any such words are necessary for your comfort, it would hardly become me to forbid them. Were I to speak so harshly you would accuse me afterwards in your own heart. It must be for you to judge whether it is well to reopen a wound that is nearly healed.”
“But with me it is not nearly healed. The wound is open always.”
“There are some hurts,” she said, “which do not admit of an absolute and perfect cure, unless after long years.” As she said so, she could not but think how much better was his chance of such perfect cure than her own. With her,—so she said to herself,—such curing was all but impossible; whereas with him, it was as impossible that the injury should last.
“Bessy,” he said, and he again stopped her on the narrow path, standing immediately before her on the way, “you remember all the circumstances that made us part?”
“Yes; I think I remember them.”
“And you still think that we were right to part?”
She paused for a moment before she answered him; but it was only for a moment, and then she spoke quite firmly. “Yes, Godfrey, I do; I have thought about it much since then. I have thought, I fear, to no good purpose about aught else. But I have never thought that we had been unwise in that.”
“And yet I think you loved me.”