“If, in telling you that I love you, I have sinned past all forgiveness, I glory in it, and I take not one word of it back.”
Yet how could he love her? How could he, when he had insulted her, when he had used her name, as he had, when he had humiliated and shamed her, how could he profess to love her? And they had met but three times in their lives.
“Joan, dear,” Helen Everard said, “Joan!”
“Yes? I am sorry, I—I was thinking.” Joan looked up.
Helen had come into the room, an open letter in her hand.
“I wrote to John and Constance Everard, my nephew and niece,” Helen said. “I told them I was here with you, and asked them to come over. They are coming to-morrow, dear. I think you will like them.”
“I am sure I shall,” Joan said; but there was no enthusiasm in her voice, only cold politeness that seemed to chill a little.
“I glory in it,” she was thinking, “and take not one word of it back.” She shrugged her shoulders disdainfully and turned away.
“What time will they be coming, Helen?” she asked, for she had made up her mind. She would think no more of this man, and remember no more of his speeches. She would wipe him out of her memory. Life for her would begin again here in Starden, and the past should hold nothing, nothing, nothing!