“It’s about that,” he answered, “that I came to talk to you. The probation has been mine. Has it lasted long enough? Do you love me yet? Come back to me,—come back to me as my wife.”
She looked at him, as he spoke, with a clear, unfrightened gaze, and, with his last words, broke frankly into a laugh. But as his own face was intensely grave, a gradual blush arrested her laugh. “Your wife, Roger?” she asked gently.
“My wife. I offer you my hand. Dear Nora, is it so incredible?”
To his uttermost meaning, somehow, her ear was still closed; she still took it as a jest. “Is that the only condition on which we can live together?” she asked.
“The only one,—for me!”
She looked at him, still sounding his eyes with her own. But his passion, merciful still, retreated before her frank doubt. “Ah,” she said, smiling, “what a pity I have grown up!”
“Well,” he said, “since you are grown we must make the best of it. Think of it, Nora, think of it. I am not so old, you know. I was young when we began. You know me so well; you would be safe. It would simplify matters vastly; it’s at least worth thinking of,” he went on, pleading for very tenderness, in this pitiful minor key. “I know it must seem odd; but I make you the offer!”
Nora was almost shocked. In this strange new character of a lover she seemed to see him eclipsed as a friend, now when, in the trouble of her love, she turned longingly to friendship. She was silent awhile, with her embarrassment. “Dear Roger,” she answered, at last, “let me love you in the old, old way. Why need we change? Nothing is so good, so safe as that. I thank you from my heart for your offer. You have given me too much already. Marry any woman you please, and I will be her serving-maid.”
He had no heart to meet her eyes; he had wrought his own fate. Mechanically, he took up his hat and turned away, without speaking. She looked at him an instant, uncertain, and then, loath to part with him so abruptly, she laid her arm round his neck. “You don’t think me unkind?” she said. “I will do anything for you on earth”—But that was unspoken, yet Roger heard it. The dream of years was shattered; he felt sick; he was dumb. “You forgive me?” she went on. “O Roger, Roger!” and, with a strange inconsequence of lovingness, she dropped her head on his shoulder. He held her for a moment as close as he had held his hope, and then released her as suddenly as he had parted with it. Before she knew it, he was gone.
Nora drew a long breath. It had all come and gone so fast that she was bewildered. It had been what she had heard called a “chance.” Suppose she had grasped at it? She felt a kind of relief in the thought that she had been wise. That she had been cruel, she never suspected. She watched Roger, from the window, cross the street and take his way up the sunny slope. Two ladies passed him, friends, as Nora saw; but he made no bow. Suddenly Nora’s reflections deepened and the scene became portentous. If she had been wrong, she had been horribly wrong. She hardly dared to think of it. She ascended to her own room, to take counsel of familiar privacy. In the hall, as she passed, she found Mrs. Keith at her open door. This lady put her arm round her waist, led her into the chamber toward the light. “Something has happened,” she said, looking at her curiously.