She looked straight before her, but made no movement.
“I have never spoken a word of love to you,” he said; “that would have been dishonorable; but there are other ways of telling a woman you love her besides open speech. You must have known that I cared for you.”
Her lips formed the word, “Yes!”
“I might have gone and done this thing,” he went on, “without saying a word to you; but that, too, would have seemed to me dishonorable. So I come to you, Ada, and I tell you frankly how it stands with me. I have come to say good-bye. We shall meet again, often, I trust, for I could not bear to think that you were going to pass out of my life altogether. We shall meet as friends—the truest friends—but I shall never be able to speak a word of love to you. I must not even convey it by a glance or a touch.”
Her head sunk, and his hand went out to its wealth of gold, but he wisely drew it back.
“Do you think,” he said, “that I have acted wisely, or unwisely, and perhaps cruelly, in coming to you and telling you this? If so, I will ask you to forgive me, and not to think unkindly of me, now that we are really parting forever.”
“There is nothing to forgive,” she said. He could only just hear her voice. “I have known all along how it must be; that the day, the hour, would come when you would have to leave me. It has not kept me from—from loving you, Trafford, but it has helped me to bear the parting as I bear it now.”
There was a pause, during which he fought hard for self-control; then she said:
“Is—is there any one you have thought of—chosen?”
“You speak as if I had only to choose.”