“That was not the price,” she sighed. “Maybe you don’t understand yet. I’m so afraid you don’t understand,” she pleaded. “At the last I had resigned you, I would have left you free, I saw how you felt; but, oh, it happened just the same—we were fated, and you showed that you hated me.” 305
“I never hated you. I was perplexed. That was a part of love,” said I.
“You mean it? You are holding nothing back?” she asked, anxious.
“I am holding nothing back,” I answered. “As you will know, I think, in time to come.”
Again we reclined, silent, at peace: a strange peace of mind and body, to which the demonstrations by the waiting Sioux were alien things.
She spoke.
“Are we very guilty, do you think?”
“In what, dearest?”
“In this, here. I am already married, you know.”
“That is another life,” I reasoned. “It is long ago and under different law.”