“Oh, it isn’t that. It is I—I—who am to blame, not you. I was a senseless, romantic little fool, a child, and now I am a woman.”
“You don’t love me, Marjorie?”
Silence for a moment, then she answered in a low voice: “No!”
“Nor ever will, your love can’t come back again?”
“I don’t think it—it was ever there. I was wrong; I did not understand. I was foolish and weak. I thought it fine to—to steal away and meet you. I think I put a halo of romance about your head, and now—”
“A halo of romance about my head,” he repeated. He looked down at his hands, grimed with the work he had been at; he smiled, but there was no mirth in his smile.
This was the end then! And he loved her, Heaven knew how he loved her! He looked at the unyielding little figure against the light, and in his eyes was a great longing and a subdued passion.
“So it—it is the end, Marjorie?”
“I want it to be.”
“Yes, I understand. I knew that I was not good enough, never good enough for you—far, far beneath you, dear. Only I would have tried to make you happy—that is what I meant, you understand that? I would have given my life to making you happy, little girl. Perhaps I was a fool to think I could. I know now that I could not.”