"I need hardly tell you what he wishes. You must know how you can best give him back the comfort he has lost."
"But, Arthur, even for him I cannot do everything."
"There is one question to be asked," he said, rising from her feet and standing before her;—"but one; and what you do should depend entirely on the answer which you may be able truly to make to that."
This he said so solemnly that he startled her.
"What question, Arthur?"
"Do you love me?" To this question at the moment she could make no reply. "Of course I know that you did not love me when you married him."
"Love is not all of one kind."
"You know what love I mean. You did not love me then. You could not have loved me,—though, perhaps, I thought I had deserved your love. But love will change, and memory will sometimes bring back old fancies when the world has been stern and hard. When we were very young I think you loved me. Do you remember seven years ago at Longbarns, when they parted us and sent me away, because—because we were so young? They did not tell us then, but I think you knew. I know that I knew, and went nigh to swear that I would drown myself. You loved me then, Emily."
"I was a child then."
"Now you are not a child. Do you love me now,—to-day? If so, give me your hand, and let the past be buried in silence. All this has come, and gone, and has nearly made us old. But there is life before us yet, and if you are to me as I am to you it is better that our lives should be lived together." Then he stood before her with his hand stretched out.