“Of course you wouldn’t,” he continued. “I shouldn’t, in your place. Oh, I know! If I were dying or starving, or very unhappy, you would be capable of doing anything for me, out of sheer goodness. You’re only just to people who aren ’t suffering. You were always like that in the old days. It’s so much the worse for us. I have nothing about me to excite your pity. I’m strong, I’m well, I’m very rich, I’m relatively happy. I don’t know how much I cared for my wife when I married her, but she has been a good wife, and I’m very fond of her now, in my own way. It wasn’t a good action, I admit, to marry her at all. She was the beauty of her year and the best match of the season, and I was just divorced, and every one’s hand was against me. I thought I would show them what I could do, winged as I was, and I got her. No; it wasn’t a thing to be proud of. But somehow we hit it off, and she stuck to me, and I grew fond of her because she did, and here we are as you see us, and Brook is a fine fellow, and likes me. I like him too. He’s honest and faithful, like his mother. There’s no justice and no logic in this world, Lucy. I was a good-for-nothing in the old days. Circumstances have made me decently good, and a pretty happy man besides, as men go. I couldn’t ask for any pity if I tried.”
“No; you’re not to be pitied. I’m glad you’re happy. I don’t wish you any harm.”
“You might, and I shouldn’t blame you. But all that isn’t what I wished to say. I’m getting old, and we may not meet any more after this. If you wish me to go away, I’ll go. We’ll leave the place tomorrow.”
“No. Why should you? It’s a strange situation, as we were to-day at table. You with your wife beside, and your divorced wife opposite you, and only you and I knowing it. I suppose you think, somehow—I don’t know—that I might be jealous of your wife. But twenty-seven years make a difference, Adam. It’s half a lifetime. It’s so utterly past that I sha’n’t realise it. If you like to stay, then stay. No harm can come of it, and that was so very long ago. Is that what you want to say?”
“No.” He hesitated. “I want you to say that you forgive me,” he said, in a quick, hoarse voice.
His keen dark eyes turned quickly to her face, and he saw how very pale she was, and how the shadows had deepened under her eyes, and her fingers twitched nervously as they clasped one another in her lap.
“I suppose you think I’m sentimental,” he said, looking at her. “Perhaps I am; but it would mean a good deal to me if you would just say it.”
There was something pathetic in the appeal, and something young too, in spite of his grey beard and furrowed face. Still Mrs. Bowring said nothing. It meant almost too much to her, even after twenty-seven years. This old man had taken her, an innocent young girl, had married her, had betrayed her while she dearly loved him, and had blasted her life at the beginning. Even now it was hard to forgive. The suffering was not old, and the sight of his face had touched the quick again. Barely ten minutes had passed since the pain had almost wrung the tears from her.
“You can’t,” said the old man, suddenly. “I see it. It’s too much to ask, I suppose, and I’ve never done anything to deserve it.”
The pale face grew paler, but the hands were still, and grasped each other, firm and cold. The lips moved, but no sound came. Then a moment, and they moved again.