She saddened: “Oh, but you have wished—you have willed—too often—too differently. It can never be now.”
“I understand you,” he said. “It is natural—I should say it is nature—nature, the never-lying. I but reap my own folly, and now good-bye forever, Helen, and may God bless you and bring you that happiness you have deserved.”
“Do you know,” she said calmly, “that I have thought of all that, too. There are so many of us in the world, and so little happiness that like flowers it cannot go around—some must go without.”
She held his hand tightly as if she did not want him to go.
“My child, I must go out of your life—go—and stay. I see—I see—and I only make you wretched. And I have no right to. It is ignoble. It is I who should bear this burden of sorrow—not you. You who have never sinned, who are so young and so beautiful. In time you will love a nobler man—Clay—”
She looked at him, but said nothing. She knew for the first time the solution of her love's problem. She was silent, holding his hand.
“Child,” he said again. “Helen, you must do as I say. There is happiness for you yet when I am gone—when I am out of your life and the memory and the pain of it cease. Then you will marry Clay—”
“Do you really think so? Oh, and he has loved me so and is so splendid and true.”
Travis was silent, waiting.
“Now let me go,” she said—“let me forget all my madness and folly in learning to love one whose love was made for mine. In time I shall love him as he deserves. Good-bye.”