Gavin rose weariedly, and walked through the mudhouse looking at her.
“This is the end of it all,” he said harshly, coming to a standstill. “I loved you, Babbie.”
“No,” she answered, shaking her head. “You never knew me until now, and so it was not me you loved. I know what you thought I was, and I will try to be it now.”
“If you had only told me this before,” the minister said sadly, “it might not have been too late.”
“I only thought you like all the other men I knew,” she replied, “until the night I came to the manse. It was only my face you admired at first.”
“No, it was never that,” Gavin said with such conviction that her mouth opened in alarm to ask him if he did not think her pretty. She did not speak, however, and he continued, “You must have known that I loved you from the first night.”
“No; you only amused me,” she said, like one determined to stint nothing of the truth. “Even at the well I laughed at your vows.”
This wounded Gavin afresh, wretched as her story had made him, and he said tragically, “You have never cared for me at all.”
“Oh, always, always,” she answered, “since I knew what love was; and it was you who taught me.”