"I didn't want you to marry Hugh," he began, again, after a long pause; "but I'd given in about it. I shouldn't have minded it so much if—if my wife—"
He broke off with a distressful, choking sound in the throat, and a twisting of the head, as if he couldn't get his breath. That passed and he began once more.
"I've had great trials. . . . My wife! . . . And then the burden of this war. . . . They think—they think I don't care anything about it but—but just to make money. . . . I've always been misjudged. . . . They've put me down as hard and proud, when—"
"I could have liked you, sir," I interrupted, boldly. "I told you so once, and it offended you. But I've never been able to help it. I've always felt that there was something big and fine in you—if you'd only set it free."
His reply to this was to turn away from his contemplation of the fish and say:
"Why don't you come back?"
I was sure it was best to be firm.
"Because I can't, sir. The episode is—is over. I'm sorry, and yet I'm glad. What I'm doing is right. I suppose everything has been right—even what happened between me and Hugh. I don't think it will do him any harm—Cissie Boscobel is there—and it's done me good. It's been a wonderful experience; but it's over. It would be a mistake for me to go back now—a mistake for all of us. Please let me go, sir; and just remember of me that I'm—I'm—grateful."
He regarded me quietly and—if I may say so—curiously. There was something in his look, something broken, something defeated, something, at long last, kind, that made me want to cry.
I was crying inwardly when he turned about, without another word, and walked toward the door.