“Look here,” said Mr. Carteret, impatiently, “don’t be an ass.”
“But don’t you understand,” said Evanston. “If what you say is true,—and I believe you,—then I have acted—” he stopped and thought for the right words, but they did not come. “I left her that afternoon without a word. A week later, without explanation, I came back, and for two years I have treated her—God knows how I have treated her!” he murmured. “If she did care for me at the first,” he went on, “if she cared for me after the failure, the end of it must have come when I went away and came back as I did. And now to put an obstacle in the way of her freedom, to try to buy her again, would be the act of a blackguard.”
“But suppose she loves you?” said Mr. Carteret.
“That,” said Evanston, “is impossible.”
“It ought to be impossible,” said Mr. Carteret. “If she poisoned you any jury would acquit her; but, fortunately for us, women are not logical.”
“No,” said Evanston again; “it is impossible.”
“That is your view of it,” said Mr. Carteret. “Would anything convince you that you are wrong?”
Evanston was silent a moment. Then he smiled bitterly. “If the thoughts she had about me in those days,” he began,—“in those days after I had come home,—if they could come back like ghosts, and should tell me that all that time she cared for me, in spite of what I was and did—” He paused.
“Then of course it is impossible,” said Mr. Carteret, dryly.