Again he seemed to shake himself, as though to rid his body of something that had fastened on it. "I never asked her to love me like that. I never wanted it."
She smiled, faintly and sweetly. "Oh, well, that wouldn't make any difference. Love gives itself. It doesn't wait for permission. I should think you'd have known that."
He leaned forward, an arm resting on one knee. While he reflected he broke into the tuneless, almost inaudible, whistling Edith used to know so well. "I said I'd never see her again," he muttered, as the result of his meditation.
"May I ask if that was a promise to any one, or if it was something you just said to yourself and about which you'd have a right to change your mind?"
He continued to mutter. "I said it to—to my wife."
"As a promise? Please forgive me for asking. I shouldn't, only that the request of a dying woman—"
"I said it," he admitted, unwillingly; "but it wasn't exactly a promise. My wife said—" He stopped and bit his lip. "She said she didn't care."
"You can't go by that. Of course she did care."
"Then if she cared, I'd let twenty women die, whoever they were—"
She rose with dignity. "That must be for you to decide, Mr. Walker. I've given you the message I was charged with. It isn't a matter in which I could venture to urge you."