She answered as well as a joyous distress would let her. "I did see it, Thor—or thought I did—for a while. Only latterly—"
"You mustn't judge by—latterly," he broke in, hastily. "Latterly I've had a good deal to go through."
"Oh, you poor Thor! Tell me about it."
Nothing would have eased his heart more effectively than to have poured out to her the whole flood of his confidence. It was what he was accustomed to doing when in her company. He could talk to her with more open heart than he had ever been able to talk to any one. It would have been a relief to tell her the whole story of Rosie Fay; and if he refrained from taking this course, it was only because he reminded himself that it wouldn't "do." It obviously wouldn't "do." He was unable to say why it wouldn't "do" except on the general ground that there were things a man had better keep to himself. He curbed, therefore, his impulse toward frankness to say:
"I can't—because there are things I shall never be able to talk about. If I could speak of them to any one it would be to you."
She looked at him anxiously. "It's nothing that I have to do with, is it?"
"Only in as far as you have to do with everything that concerns me."
Tears in her eyes could not keep her face from growing radiant. "Oh, Thor, how can I believe it?"
"It's true, Lois. I can hardly go back to the time when, in my own mind, it hasn't been true."
"But I'm not worthy of it," she said, half tearfully.