'Yes, yes!' the tears stood in her eyes. 'Why did I come, you would ask? That is what you cannot forgive! I see now how useless it was. Evan! why did you betray me?'
'Betray you, Rose?'
'You said that you loved me once.'
She was weeping, and all his spirit melted, and his love cried out: 'I said "till death," and till death it will be, Rose.'
'Then why, why did you betray me, Evan? I know it all. But if you blackened yourself to me, was it not because you loved something better than me? And now you think me false! Which of us two has been false? It 's silly to talk of these things now too late! But be just. I wish that we may be friends. Can we, unless you bend a little?'
The tears streamed down her cheeks, and in her lovely humility he saw the baseness of that pride of his which had hitherto held him up.
'Now that you are in this house where I was born and am to live, can you regret what has come between us, Rose?'
Her lips quivered in pain.
'Can I do anything else but regret it all my life, Evan?'
How was it possible for him to keep his strength?