She was very still for an instant, as if he had struck her, and then she raised her golden head, and a pair of sweet eyes suddenly grown haughty.
“You mean that I will set you free!” she said coldly. “I could not think of letting you be bound by a misunderstanding when you were under great stress of mind. You were in no wise to blame. I will set you free.”
“As you please,” he retorted bitterly, turning toward the window again. “It all amounts to the same thing. There is nothing for you to feel bad about.”
“Yes, there is,” she answered, with a quick rush of feeling that broke through her assumed haughtiness. “I shall always feel that I have broken in upon your life. You have had a most trying experience with me, and you never can quite forget it. Things won’t be the same——”
She paused and the quiet tears chased each other eloquently down her face.
“No,” said Gordon still bitterly; “things will never be the same for me. I shall always see you sitting there in my chair. I shall always be missing you from it! But I am glad—glad. I would never have known what I missed if it had not been for this.” He spoke almost savagely.
He did not look around, but she was staring at him in astonishment, her blue eyes suddenly alight.
“What do you mean?” she asked softly.
He wheeled round upon her. “I mean that I shall never forget you; that I do not want to forget you. I should rather have had these two days of your sweet company, than all my lifetime in any other companionship.”
“Oh!” she breathed. “Then, why—why did you say what you did about being free?”