“I never supposed you could love me,” he said sadly, “but since you allow the friendship, will you let me write to you? You’re the only friend I feel I want to write to while I’m trying to prove that my way is the right one.”
She considered before she said, “I’d like to hear from you, but you must not write. It will only make trouble. And now I must say good-bye and—good luck.” She put out her hand.
He held it, striving with himself. Then he said a little unsteadily, “I think you must know that I have cared for you all along, and because I may never see you again, will you—will you let me kiss you—once?”
“But, Colin, you understand that I—I don’t love you?”
“Too well!”
She could just see that his face was white. She made an almost imperceptible movement, and it was not of refusal.
A moment later he was gone.
When the sound of his footsteps had ceased, Kitty stirred.
“Am I crying?” she said to herself, and wiped her eyes. “Poor Colin, poor boy! I wonder if he will write, after all.” She started for home. “And I thought I had sort of got over the London longing,” she sighed.