She looked at him and smiled.
"You'll be here always, won't you? You're not going away from Canaan again?"
For a moment it seemed that she had not heard him. Then her bright glance at him wavered and fell. She rose, turning slightly away from him, but not so far that he could not see the sudden agitation in her face.
"Ah!" he cried, rising too, "I don't want you to think I don't understand, or that I meant I should ever ask you to stay here! I couldn't mean that; you know I couldn't, don't you? You know I understand that it's all just your beautiful friendliness, don't you?"
"It isn't beautiful; it's just ME, Joe," she said. "It couldn't be any other way."
"It's enough that you should be here now," he went on, bravely, his voice steady, though his hand shook. "Nothing so wonderful as your staying could ever actually happen. It's just a light coming into a dark room and out again. One day, long ago—I never forgot it—some apple-blossoms blew by me as I passed an orchard; and it's like that, too. But, oh, my dear, when you go you'll leave a fragrance in my heart that will last!"
She turned toward him, her face suffused with a rosy light. "You'd rather have died than have said that to me once," she cried. "I'm glad you're weak enough now to confess it!"
He sank down again into his chair and his arms fell heavily on the desk. "Confess it!" he cried, despairingly. "And you don't deny that you're going away again—so it's true! I wish I hadn't realized it so soon. I think I'd rather have tried to fool myself about it a little longer!"
"Joe," she cried, in a voice of great pain, "you mustn't feel like that! How do you know I'm going away again? Why should I want the old house put in order unless I mean to stay? And if I went, you know that I could never change; you know how I've always cared for you—"
"Yes," he said, "I do know how. It was always the same and it always will be, won't it?"