“I don’t want you to think me worse than I am,” he said.
“My dear, I wouldn’t,” she assured him, gently.
He stared at her with his great hollow eyes.
“Frankie!” he cried, “You do understand, don’t you? That it was—I don’t know—a mistake of some sort. I can say it now. I always—loved you. Always. Never anyone else.”
She had a chill dread of what she felt he was about to ask her.
“If you could say—even a word——?”
She got up and went to him as he sat hunched up on a trunk; she stroked his hair very gently. She wanted terribly to give him some little comfort, but she couldn’t feed him with lies, even though he were starving.
“It’s all over and done with now, Lionel,” she said. “It’s better to try and forget it.”
“But, Frankie.... If I could only know.... If you’d changed.... If you still care for me?”
“It’s no use talking of that, my dear.”