Her words pierced his heart; the more he realized the difficulties of her life the more intolerable grew the longing to help her, to shield her, to defy the opinion of outsiders for her sake.
“But don’t you see,” he urged, “that it is only a form of pride which you are giving way to? It is only that which is keeping us apart.”
“And what if it is,” she replied, her eyes flashing. “A woman has a right to be proud in such matters. Besides, it is not only pride. It is that I can’t think of happiness while Frithiof is miserable. My first duty is to him; and how could I flaunt my happiness in his face? how could I now bring back to him the remembrance of all his past troubles?”
“At least wait,” pleaded Roy, once more; “at least let me once more ask your final answer a few months hence.”
“I will wait until Frithiof’s name is cleared,” she said passionately. “You may ask me again then, not before.”
Then seeing the despair in his face her strength all at once gave way, she turned aside trying to hide her tears. He stood up and came toward her, her grief gave him fresh hope and courage.
“Sigrid,” he said, “I will not urge you any more. It shall be as you wish. Other men have had to wait. I suppose I, too, can bear it. I only ask one thing, tell me this once that you love me.”
He saw the lovely color flood her cheek, she turned toward him silently but with all her soul in her eyes. For a minute he held her closely, and just then it was impossible that he could realize the hopelessness of the case. Strong with the rapture of the confession she had made, it was not then, nor indeed for many hours after, that cold despair gripped his heart once more. She loved him—he loved her with the whole strength of his being. Was it likely that a miserable five-pound note could for ever divide them? Poor Roy! as Sigrid had said, he had lived such a sheltered life. He knew so little of the world.
CHAPTER XXIX.
It is of course a truism that we never fully appreciate what we have, until some trouble or some other loss shows us all that has grown familiar in a fresh light. Our life-long friends are only perhaps valued at their true worth when some friendship of recent growth has proved fleeting and full of disappointment. And though many may love their homes, yet a home can only be properly appreciated by one who has had to bear from the outside world contempt and misunderstanding and harsh judgment. Fond as he had been of his home before, Frithiof had never until now quite realized what it meant to him. But as each evening he returned from work, and from the severe trial of an atmosphere of suspicion and dislike, he felt much as the sailor feels when, after tossing about all day in stormy seas he anchors at night in some harbor of refuge. Sigrid knew that he felt this, and she was determined that he should not even guess at her trouble. Luckily she had plenty to do, so that it was impossible for her to sit and look her sorrow in the face, or brood over it in idleness. It was with her certainly as she went about her household work, with her as she and Swanhild walked through the hot and crowded streets, and with her as she played at Madame Lechertier’s Academy. But there was something in the work that prevented the trouble from really preying on her mind, she was sad indeed yet not in despair.