"Bless you, I am serious indeed! I expected something like this, but not so soon; and, in fact, I expected to say it myself—but I could not have done it better!"
"Did you really intend to say it, to come back to me?" She gazed appealingly at him.
"As soon as we had time for such trifles." He would not enter into her saddened mood.
"But one thing I want to know: did you really intend it, or was it only my cruel affliction that brought you back to me—motives of sheer humanity—because no one else would help me, because they thought I was the prey of frenzied fancies to believe that Archie still lived?"
Julian was silent for a moment, obviously hesitating. Then he reluctantly admitted, "No, I should never have come back."
She threw herself back in the chair with a little pathetic sigh. He looked at her with a smile at once tender and whimsical. She too smiled faintly, then took up the theme anew.
"But, Julian," she persisted, "it is very painful to reflect that you had deliberately shut me out of your heart forever; that when you saw me again you had no impulse to renew the past. Had you none, really?"
The temptation was strong to give her the reassurance she craved. She had suffered so bitterly that a pang of merely sentimental woe seemed a gratuitous cruelty. Yet he was resolved that there should never come the shadow of falsehood between them. He was glad—joyous! The future should make brave amends for the past. He sought to cast off the bitter retrospection with which she had invested the situation. His gay laughter rang out. "Madam, I will not deceive you! I intended that you should never get another shot at me; but circumstances have been too much for me—and I have ceased to struggle against them."