Her face clouded. “I won’t bother you with sympathy, Jack,” she said, “if you don’t want me to; but I am awfully sorry, just the same; I’ve thought of you so many times. And Jack,” she added, “I wish you’d promise me to think more about yourself now. You’ve been through such a lot, and really you don’t look well at all. You’re thin, and tired-looking, and different—somehow—every way.”
Carleton nodded. What the inward change had been, he knew better than any one else. And outwardly, indeed, he did appear more careworn, more thoughtful, than he had ever done before. In his whole manner there was a new poise, and a new gravity as well. “Oh, I’m all right, thanks,” he answered, “only when you get worried, and begin not to sleep, it makes a difference, you know. Thank you, though, Marjory, for being sorry. I appreciate it more than I can say. But I didn’t mean to bother you with all my troubles like this. I came out to tell you something different altogether, and I find it’s awfully hard to begin.”
Momentarily he paused. Intent on what he was saying, he had sat looking straight before him, never lifting his eyes to the girl’s face. Had he done so, he could scarcely have failed to note the expression there, a look as if already she both knew and dreaded what it was that he wished to say, and had it been possible, would gladly have checked the words before he could give them utterance. But all absorbed in his desire to express himself as he wished, Carleton still sat gazing fixedly into the firelight, and after a pause, went on.
“I wonder how I can make you understand. Did you ever have something, Marjory, that you wanted to do very much; something that you were always on the point of doing, and yet somehow kept putting off from day to day, until at last something else happened that made it impossible ever to do it at all, and left you just saying over and over to yourself, ‘Why didn’t I? Why didn’t I when I could?’”
The girl gave a nod of assent. “Yes, Jack,” she answered, “I understand.”
“Then you’ll know what I mean,” he continued, “by what I’m going to tell you now. It’s only this, and I think you know what it is before I say it, even. I love you, Marjory; I always have loved you, even when you were only a little girl. That was the trouble all along, I suppose. I always thought of you as so young that I kept saying to myself that I oughtn’t to bother you, that there would be plenty of time when you were older. And then—when you were older—I’d got started on a foolish way of living. I don’t really know how I began—just seemed to drift into it somehow. And I didn’t keep on because I enjoyed it—for I didn’t—it was just the habit of it that gripped me so I couldn’t seem to break away. And now that I’ve come to my senses again, Marjory—now that I can come to you, feeling that I’ve a right to tell you that I love you—why now it’s too late. I’ve got to begin at the foot of the ladder; I can’t ask you to marry me; but I want to know if you’ll wait—let me show that I’m able to make good—give me another chance. That’s all I ask, Marjory; all that I’ve a right to ask.”
Slowly and unwillingly, her gaze met his, “Jack,” she began, “you know the money would make no difference; I’d never think of that, of course. It isn’t that—”
She hesitated, and stopped. Carleton’s eyes sought hers with the look of a man who feels the whole world reel beneath him.
“Marjory,” he cried, “do you mean you don’t care—you don’t love me?”
There was a moment’s silence. And then the girl slowly shook her head. “No, Jack, I don’t mean that. Of course I care. I’ve always cared. You must have known. Any time, from the day you graduated from college, up to a year ago, if you’d come to me and asked me to marry you, I’d have been the happiest girl you could find anywhere—”