He flung out the closed hand.
“Now,” he said, “you know. I’ve thrown away common sense and prudence, all sense of what is fitting and all that is due to you. None of those things seem to count just now.”
He drew a little nearer.
“I fell in love with you at Kinnaird’s camp, and tried hard to crush that folly. Then I found the mine, and for a few mad weeks I almost ventured to believe that I might win you. After that, the fight to drive your memory out of my heart had to be made again.”
“It was hard?” asked Ida very softly.
“It was relentlessly cruel.” Weston’s voice grew sharper. “Still, I tried to make it. I gave way in only one point—I came to see you now and then. Now it’s so hard that I’m beaten. I’ve failed in this thing as I’ve failed in the other.”
He straightened himself suddenly, with a little forceful gesture.
“I’m beaten all round, beaten to my knees; but I don’t seem ashamed. Even if you can’t forgive me, I’m glad I’ve told you.”
“I think,” said Ida, “I could forgive you for one offense—the one you seem to think most important—rather easily. It would have been ever so much harder to do that had you gone away without telling me.”
“You mean that?” cried Weston, and, stooping over her, he caught one hand and gripped it almost cruelly.