"You did," she said. "That was it. Perhaps I never was the creature you fancied me."
"Don't say that," he replied. "Since I have been here I have seen you as I used to dream of you, when I sat by the fire in my quarters in the long winter nights."
"Did you ever think of me like that?" she said slowly, and with surprise in her face.
He had not thought of what he was revealing, and he did not think of it now.
"I never forgot you," he said. "Never."
"It seems very strange—to hear that now," she said. "I never dreamed of your thinking of me—afterwards. You seemed to take so little notice of me."
"It is my good fortune," he said, with a touch of bitterness, "that I never seem to take notice of anything."
"I suppose," she went on, "that you remembered me because you were lonely at first, and there was no one else to think of."
"Perhaps that was it," he answered.