"Esther!"
He could say nothing, do nothing. He dared not even touch the dark, bent head. But we may well pity him as he watched her.
The girl's sobbing wore itself out and presently she lifted tear-drenched eyes, like the blue of the sky after rain. Her tragic, unnatural composure had all been wept away.
"I understand—now," she faltered. "Before, I didn't. I thought dreadful things. I thought that I—that you—oh, I couldn't bear the things I thought! But it's better now. You did love me—didn't you?"
"Before God—yes!"
She went on dreamily. "It would have been too terrible if you hadn't—if you had just pretended—had been amusing yourself—been false and base. But I felt all along that you were never that. I knew there must be some explanation and it didn't seem wrong to ask. Instead of pretending that I didn't know all the things you had not time to say. Forgive me for ever doubting that you were brave and good."
"Spare me—"
She was not yet old enough to understand the tragic appeal. For she leaned nearer, laying her soft hand over his clenched ones.
"It is all so very, very sad," she said with quaint simplicity which was part of her, "but not so bad—oh, not nearly so bad as if you had been pretending—or I mistaken. Think!—How terrible to give one's love unworthily or unasked!"
"But you do not love me," he burst out, "you cannot! You must not!"