Marion had grown very pale. "I have no right to judge your conduct," she said.
"You had a right then, and you exercised it severely. Perhaps I was too presumptuous, too decided in my opinion and refusal. I have thought so since, and I should like to hear you say that you forgive it."
"I cannot imagine," she said, with a marked lack of her usual self-possession, "why you should attach any importance to my forgiveness—granting that I have anything to forgive."
"Can you not? Then I will tell you why I attach importance to it. Because during these months of absence I have learned that my attachment to you is as great as it ever was—as great, do I say? Nay, it is much greater, since I know you better now, and the nobleness in which I formerly believed has been proved. I can hardly venture to hope for so much happiness, but if it is possible that you can think of me again, that you can forgive and trust me, I should try, by God's help, to deserve your trust better."
"Do not speak in that manner," said Marion, with trembling lips. "It is I who should ask forgiveness, if there is to be any question of it at all. But I thought you had forgotten me—it was surely natural enough,—and that when you went away it was because—on account of—Claire."
"You were right," he answered, quietly. "I meant to tell you that. In the reaction of my disappointment about you, I thought of your friend; because I admired her so much, I fancied I was in love with her. But when she put an end to such fancies by telling me gently and kindly of her intention to enter the religious life, I learned my mistake. The thought of her passed away like a dream—like a shadow that has crossed a mirror,—and I found that you, Marion, had been in my heart all the time. I tested myself by absence, and I returned with the intention of seeking you wherever you were to be found, and asking you if there is no hope for me—no hope of winning your heart and your trust again."
There was a moment's pause, and then she held out her hand to him.
"You have never lost either," she said.
(The End.)
Transcribers note:
The authors use of "woful" instead of "woeful" is legitimate and deliberate.