"You won't."
"I thought you understood me better. I thought you wanted me to be happy!"
"Upon my soul, Lucy, I think that you might find happiness that way."
She shrugged her shoulders and her face looked hard as marble. "And that's your advice!" she said. And then with a sudden change of expression, "It's what you think I ought to do. Would it please you if I took your advice? Is it what you want me to do?"
I had spoken as I thought duty commanded. It hadn't been easy. With each word I felt that I had lost ground in her estimation. She asked that last question with the expression of a weary woebegone child, and I answered it without thought, and upon the urge of a wrong impulse.
"No—no," I cried. "It's not what I want you to do. I had almost rather see you dead."
There was a long silence.
"Do you mean that?"
"Yes, Lucy. Yes."
"Then you do care. Oh, thank God!"