“No,” she answered sadly; “all that is finished—he has gone from me—gone, I am convinced, for ever.”
“I also have been working,” I said, “working hard.”
“You look tired. Have you been in Salonika long?”
Our talk drifted to commonplace things, and soon I rose to leave.
Next day I sought her again. She was in the garden, for, though it was now late October, the weather was very warm and sunny. She seemed disturbed, but not surprised, when she saw me. We wandered slowly under the trees; their leaves left the branches as we came and fell upon our way. I did not feel that she was unhappy. I asked if I might come to see her every afternoon.
“Why, yes,” she said, “if it pleases you.”
So every afternoon I spent an hour with her, and, when the cold weather came with the Varda winds, we sat indoors.
By Christmas she had promised to marry me....
Now, my dear friend, you must understand that even before our marriage I realized that she was not, nor ever could be, wholly mine. In some inexplicable way, she still belonged to him. Many women are like that: the best women are. Sterling’s name was never mentioned; after our engagement he was not referred to even remotely. Yet she was his. Then why, you ask, did she marry me? Out of pity; I am sure of it. Yet, in a way, she loved me and loves me still. No one could have been more tender, more generous, more self-sacrificing: it weakens and unmans me to think of these things....
I took her away with me to Athens. I was very happy. I had never believed such unalloyed bliss as mine was possible. It never faded. And Judith, in her fashion, was happy also.