“I have been punished, Burgwan,” she said as she smiled through her tears.
“You love me, then?”
She met my look without faltering, smiling on through her tears, and made a brave effort to choke back her emotion, until her head drooped slowly.
“You must not ask me that, Burgwan. You must know all the truth now. Poor Burgwan. Oh, I think my heart is breaking.” The last was little more than a sigh, and taking her hands from mine she went back up the hill to the tree and sat down again.
Seeing her sorrow, Chris went to her and whined and put his head in her lap; the beast loved her well nigh as much as I did, and her trouble grieved him as it grieved me, I think. She threw her arms round his neck and laid her head to his in response to his dumb offer of sympathy.
In this way some minutes passed, and I knew without words from her all the reason of her wish to leave me. That wild thought of mine had been right. It was from her own heart she had been flying; and she was suffering now the pain I could have spared her but for my insensate selfishness.
I knew that there were obstacles which she believed to be insuperable between us, and I had driven her to this admission of her love as the preface to telling me the reasons why it was impossible.
But in the same moment I vowed they should not come between us. Nothing should do that except her own will; and if these difficulties could be overcome by any means within my reach, my life should be devoted to beating them down.
There was something or someone to fight now; and she was a prize worth fighting for, with all the man that was in me; and while the sight of her pain moved and distressed me beyond words, I could no longer feel sorry I had come after her to Samac.
She loved me; and the knowledge of love may have a setting of pain and sorrow and yet be well gained and rightly gained. Our hearts had answered one to the other; and despite the pain, it was well that each should know the truth.