His words stirred her, for they were certainly true, and his gentleness had also its effect. The situation was becoming more and more difficult, since it seemed impossible to make him understand that he would in all probability speedily tire of her. To make it clear that she could never be satisfied with him was a thing from which she shrank.
“How have you passed those four years?” she asked, to gain time.
For a moment his conscience smote him. He remembered the trips to Winnipeg, and the dances to which he had escorted Sally Creighton. It was, however, evident that Agatha could have heard nothing of Sally.
“I spent them in hard work. I wanted to make the place comfortable for you,” he answered. “It is true”—and he added this with a twinge of uneasiness, as he remembered that his neighbors had done much more with less incentive—“that it’s still very far from what I would like, but things have been against me.”
The speech had a far stronger effect than he could have expected, for Agatha remembered Wyllard’s description of what the prairie farmer had to face. Those four years of determined effort and patient endurance, as she pictured them, counted heavily against her in the man’s favor. It flashed upon her that, after all, there might have been some warrant for the view that she had held of Gregory’s character when he had fallen in love with her. He was younger then. There must have been latent possibilities in him, but the years of toil had killed them and hardened him. It was for her sake he had made the struggle, and now it seemed unthinkable that she should renounce him because he came to her with the dust and stain of it upon him. For all that, she was possessed with a feeling that she would involve them both in disaster if she yielded. Something warned her that she must stand firm.
“Gregory,” she said, “I seem to know that we should both be sorry afterwards if I kept my promise.”
Hawtrey straightened himself with a smile that she recognized. She had liked him for it once, for it had then suggested the joyous courage of untainted youth. Now, however, it struck her as merely hinting at empty, complacent assurance. She hated herself for the fancy, but it would not be driven away.
“Well,” he replied, “I’m quite willing to face that hazard. I suppose this diffidence is only natural, Aggy, but it’s a little hard on me.”
“No,” replied the girl with emphasis, “it’s horribly unnatural, and that’s why I’m afraid. I should have come to you gladly, without a misgiving, feeling that nothing could hurt me if I was with you. I wanted to do that, Gregory—I meant to—but I can’t.” Then her voice fell to a tone that had vibrant regret in it. “You should have made sure—you should have married me when you last came home.”
“But I’d nowhere to take you. The farm was only half-broken prairie, the homestead almost unhabitable.”