"What?" He bent anxiously towards her for the answer.
"You might have tried to see me."
"But I was never in the camp. I was always a day's march in the lead of the army."
"But not always fighting. There were days, or nights, when you could have ridden back. I would have met you anywhere—I would have ridden hours to see you. But you never tried. And at last it is I who send for you and beg you to come and talk with me here. And you do not even seem glad to be with me."
"I did not think that I had a right to leave my post and come back, even for you."
"You could not have helped it—if you had cared." She spoke very low.
Gilbert looked at her long, and the lines deepened in his face, for he was hurt.
"Do you really believe that I do not love you?" he asked, but his voice was cold because he tried to control it, and succeeded too well.
"You have never told me so," Beatrix answered. "You have done little to make me think so, since we were children together. You have never tried to see me when it would have cost you anything. You are not glad to see me now."
Her voice could be cold, too; but there was a tremor in some of the syllables. He was utterly surprised and taken unawares, and he slowly repeated the substance of what she said.