“Yes, if she were one who would act so cruelly. But no true woman ever mocked at true love. Rarely, knowingly, would she give cause for it to be cast before her in vain. If your friend be worthy, how knows he but that she may love him all the while?”
“Well, well, let that pass. He has other reasons.” He paused and looked towards her, but Olive's face was drooped out of sight. He continued,—“Reasons such as men only feel. You know not what an awful thing it is to cast one's pride, one's hope—perhaps the weal or woe of one's whole life—upon a woman's light 'Yes' or 'No.' I speak,” he added, abruptly, “as my friend, the youth in love, would speak.”
“Yes, I know—I understand. Tell me more. That is, if I may hear.”
“Oh, certainly. His other reasons were,—that he was poor; that, if betrothed, it might be years before they could marry; or, perhaps, as his health was feeble, he might die, and never call her wife at all. Therefore, though he loved her as dearly as ever man loved woman, he held it right, and good, and just, to keep silence.”
“Did he imagine, even in his lightest thought, that she loved him?”
“He could not tell. Sometimes it almost seemed so.”
“Then he was wrong—cruelly wrong! He thought of his own pride, not of her. Little he knew the long, silent agony she must bear—the doubt of being loved causing shame for loving. Little he saw of the daily struggle: the poor heart frozen sometimes into dull endurance, and then wakened into miserable throbbing life by the shining of some hope, which passes and leaves it darker and colder than before. Poor thing! Poor thing!”
And utterly forgetting herself, forgetting all but the compassion learnt from sorrow, Olive spoke with strong agitation.
Harold watched her intently. “Your words are sympathising and kind. Say on! What should he, this lover, do?”
“Let him tell her that he loves her—let him save her from the misery that wears away youth, and strength, and hope.”