He saw the hand holding her work tremble a very little. She let it fall upon her knee, still holding the embroidery. She leaned forward slightly and in her look there was actually something rather like a sort of timid prayer.
"Please let me," she said. "Please let me—if you can!"
"Let you!" was all that he could say.
"Let me try to help you to rest—to feel quiet and forget for just a little while. It's such a small thing. And it's all I can ever try to do."
"You do it very perfectly," he answered, touched and wondering.
"You have been kind to me ever since I was a child—and I did not know," she said. "Now I know, because I understand. Oh! will you forgive me? Please—will you?"
"Don't, my dear," he said. "You were a baby. I understood. That prevented there being anything to forgive—anything."
"I ought to have loved you as I loved Mademoiselle and Dowie." Her eyes filled with tears. "And I think I hated you. It began with Donal," in a soft wail. "I heard Andrews say that his mother wouldn't let him know me because you were my mother's friend. And then as I grew older—"
"Even if I had known what you thought I could not have defended myself," he answered, faintly smiling. "You must not let yourself think of it. It is nothing now."