“How could I have done otherwise?” she asked.
“I do not understand,” he replied.
She could not hold her eyes to his as she explained, but looked down, her expression changing from happiness to one of shame and sadness.
“You forget that girl, the friend of Cousin William?” she asked.
“Oh, Shannon!” he cried, laying a hand impulsively upon her arm. “I told you that I wouldn’t say that to you. I didn’t want you to stay away. I have implicit confidence in you.”
“No,” she contradicted him. “In your heart you thought it, and perhaps you were right.”
“No,” he insisted. “Please don’t stay away—promise me that you will not! You have hurt them all, and they are all so fond of you!”
“I am sorry, Custer. I would not hurt them. I love them all; but I thought I was doing the thing that you wished. There was so much that you did not understand—that you can never understand—and you were away where you couldn’t know what was going on; so it seemed disloyal to do the thing I thought you would rather I didn’t do.”
“It’s all over now,” he said. “Let’s start over again, forgetting all that has happened in the last six months and a half.”
Again, as his hand lay upon her arm, he was seized with an almost uncontrollable desire to crush her to him. Two things deterred him—his loyalty to Grace, and the belief that his love would be unwelcome to Shannon.