“So did I!” she cried, bursting into tears, “but I was wrong—wrong—all wrong. I didn’t understand!” Her breast was heaving, there were sobs in her throat, sobs she fought and struggled against.
The dawn of understanding came to him. He believed he saw. She had fancied herself in love with Tom, and now she knew she was not—how did she know? For the simple reason that she found she was in love with someone else. Now who on earth could it be? he wondered.
“Won’t you tell me all about it, dear?”
“I—I can’t. Don’t ask me—I ought not to have written, I ought not to have come. I wish—I wish I had not. It is my fault, not Tom’s; he is good and kind and—and patient with me, and I know I am unkind and cross to him, and I feel ashamed of myself!”
“Marjorie!”
“Yes, Hugh?” She looked up.
“Tell me the truth, dear,” he said gravely. “Do you realise that you are not in love with Tom because you know now that you are in love with someone else?”
She did not answer in words, nodding speechlessly.
“Is he a good man, dear?”
“The best in the world, Hugh,” she said softly—“the finest, the dearest, and best.”