"But I had made up my mind—I did make it up while we talked."
They were back on the couch. He held her close and she no longer resisted, but nestled in his arms with quick little sighs, as if relieved from a great strain. He kissed her forehead and hair as she dried her eyes.
"Now, rest a little. Then we shall go."
"I've so much to tell you. That day at the jeweller's—well, what could I do but take one poor last little look of you—to keep?"
"Tell me if you care for me."
"Oh, I do, I do, I do care for you. I have—ever since that day we walked in the woods. I do, I do!"
She threw her head back and gave him her lips.
She was crying again and trying to talk.
"I did care for you, and that day I thought you were going to say something, but you didn't—you were so distant and troubled, and seemed not even to like me—though I felt sure you loved me. I had thought you were going to tell me, and I'd have accepted—yes, for the money—though I liked you so much. Why, when I first met you in that mine and thought you were a workman, I'm not sure I wouldn't have married you if you had asked me. But it was different again when I found out about you. And that day in the woods I thought something had come between us. Only after dinner you seemed kinder, and I knew at once you thought better of me, and might even seek me—I knew it in the way a woman knows things she doesn't know at all. I went into the library with a candle to look into the mirror, almost sure you were going to come. Then I heard your steps and I was so glad—but it wasn't you-I'd been mistaken again-you still disliked me. I was so disappointed and hurt and heartsick, and he kissed me and soothed me. And after that directly I saw through him, and I knew I truly did love you just as I'd wanted to love the man who would be my husband—only all that nonsense about money that had been dinned into me so long kept me from seeing it at first. But I was sure you didn't care for me when they talked so about you, and that—you never did care for her, did you—you couldn't have cared for her, could you?—and yet, after that night, I'd such a queer little feeling as if you had come for me, and had seen—"
"Surely a gentleman never sees anything he wasn't meant to see."