"Why should you be more unhappy than I am? Nothing could make me end my life now."
She looked at him in silence.
"If you look at me in that way—" Winthrop began.
She left her place. He stood where he was, watching her, but he was not paying much heed to what she was saying, now. He had the great fact, man-like, he was enjoying it; it was enough for the present—after all these years.
She seemed to see how little impression she had made. She came back to the old stone a second time to complete her story. "I tried so hard—I was so glad when I saw how you disliked me," she began.
"It wasn't dislike."
"I thought it was; and I was miserably glad. What did I take charge of Garda for but because I thought you loved her? That should be my penance, she should be like my own sister, and I would do everything that I possibly could for her, for her sake and yours. She was so very beautiful—"
He interposed here. "Yes, she was beautiful; but beautiful for everybody. Your beauty is dearer, because it is kept, in its fullest sweetness, for the man you love."
But no blush rose in her face, she was too unhappy for that; she was absorbed, too, in trying to reach him, to touch him, so that he would see what must be, as she saw it. "I did all I could for her," she went on, earnestly—"you know I did; I tried to influence her, I tried to love her; and I did love her. I was sure, too, that she cared for you—"
"It isn't everybody, you must remember, that has your opinion of me," interrupted her listener, delightedly.