Stooping over her, he answered:
“It is good for me to know the whole truth. What hurts you may give me will pass—for life must end, and my life cannot be long enough to pay the price of the hurts I have given you. I could bear a thousand—one for every hour—if they could bring back the light to your eye, the joy to your heart. Could prayer, do you think, make me sorrier than I am? I have hurt what I would have spared from hurt at the cost of my life—and all the lives in all the world!” he added fiercely.
“Forgive me—oh, forgive your Rosalie!” she pleaded. “I did not know what I was saying—I was mad.”
“It was all so sane and true,” he said, like one who, on the brink of death, finds a satisfaction in speaking the perfect truth. “I am glad to hear the truth—I have been such a liar.”
She looked up startled, her tears blinding her. “You have not deceived me?” she asked bitterly. “Oh, you have not deceived me—you have loved me, have you not?” It was that which mattered, that only. Moveless and eager, she looked—looked at him, waiting, as it were, for sentence.
“I never lied to you, Rosalie—never!” he answered, and he touched her hand.
She gave a moan of relief at his words. “Oh, then, oh, then... “ she said, in a low voice, and the tears in her eyes dried away.
“I meant that until I knew you, I kept deceiving myself and others all my life—”
“But without knowing it?” she said eagerly.
“Perhaps, without quite knowing it.”