"Oh, please—" said Jerry hurriedly and taking a step toward the door. "Allow me to call some other time."
"Stay where ye are!" cried O'Connell, hurrying out as the bell rang again.
Peg and Jerry looked at each other a moment, then she lowered her eyes.
"I want to ask ye something, Sir Gerald," she began.
"Jerry!" he corrected.
"Please forgive me for what I said to ye that day. It was wrong of me to say it. Yet it was just what ye might have expected from me. But ye'd been so fine to me—a little nobody—all that wonderful month that it's hurt me ever since. And I didn't dare write to ye—it would have looked like presumption from me. But now that ye've come here—ye've found me out and I want to ask yer pardon—an' I want to ask ye not to be angry with me."
"I couldn't be angry with you, Peg."
He paused, and, as he looked at her, the reserve of the held-in, self-contained man was broken. He bent over her and said softly:
"Peg, I love you!"
A cry welled up from Peg's heart to her lips, and was stifled. The room swam around her.