He was for a moment literally incapable of speech. She went on falteringly, "Out in Cleveland, at Margaret's wedding you know, everybody talking about getting married, and Margaret ... she's like my sister ... we're so near each other ... and we talked. She was just going to be married, and she thought I was, too. And I thought so. Truly, Neale, I'd never dreamed of anything else. And she talked to me as one woman about to be married talks to another—not girls' talk."
She began to cry a little now, though she made a great effort to control herself, drawing long, long breaths, and halting between her words, trying to bring them out quietly, "Neale, I'm afraid you won't understand. I don't know how to tell you, I don't know how to tell you! You see I never knew my mother and I never liked to talk intimately with other girls about ... about ... but Margaret is so fine and——" She cried out what she had to say in one burst, in a loud voice of pain, "Oh, Neale, when I saw Margaret with her lover I knew, I knew, I'd never loved you at all. I knew I'd hate you if we were married."
She turned away and leaned against the wall, sobbing, her face hidden in the crook of her arm. "What's the matter with me!" she cried desperately, brokenly. "Why don't I? Am I different from other women? I can't bear to hurt you so! I want to love you! What can I do with myself if I don't?"
The two stood there, the broken pieces of their life lying in a heap between them.
Over the heap, Neale took one long step and put his arms around Martha, so tenderly, so quietly, that she did not start or shrink away. She stopped sobbing, she stood still in his arms, breathlessly still as though she were listening intently, as though she were taking in some knowledge from a source not articulate.
She turned her face to his, and said abruptly, "Neale, it's just come to me.... I hadn't thought of that ... perhaps you don't really love me either, not in that way ... perhaps you never did. Perhaps I've just found all of it out in time."
Neale was startled, frightened, unutterably desolate but he made no pretense of being taken by surprise. "I can't bear to give you up, Martha," he said looking down at her. "Perhaps what we have is all we could ever have. We may lose this and have nothing. Perhaps there really is nothing else. What we have is ... is ... very good to have." His face contracted in a pain that really did surprise him by its keenness. He was horrified at the idea of losing Martha altogether.
Martha gazed steadily into his face as if trying to understand what he said, their old habit of sharing things, of talking things over, strong on her. He noted how pale and drawn her face was, with dark rings under her eyes. She had been suffering, she too had had broken nights. And as he looked he saw from her eyes that she was no longer seeing him, but some inner vision.
She shivered and drew away from him. "Yes, there is something else ... something we haven't ... and it's what makes it all right," she said. "I'd rather have nothing at all ... nothing ... ever! than something that would make part of me shrink away from you. I couldn't stand that! I couldn't stand that!"
She had said the last words wildly, and she was back by the door now, as if ready for flight.