“I must say good-by, now,” he said. “It’s time for me to go.”
She gave a little cry, and looked at him with a half-distracted gaze, as she said, excitedly:
“Oh, not yet—not yet, surely! I thought you would stay for hours. Oh, Bertie, don’t leave me yet—just as we were so happy! My heart will break!”
She turned away with an instinct to conceal from him the agony in her face. He saw her wring her little hands together, and then put them to her lips and bite them, and he knew she was making an effort, for his sake, not to cry. But it was worse still to see this courageous struggle with agony, and his one thought was to get away.
“Bertie,” she said, suddenly turning toward him her pallid and terrified face, “I’m going to bear it if I can. I’ll do my very best, but if—if I find I can’t—if it is going to be like this always, and I can’t bear it, would you mind it very much—do you think you could keep from letting it make you unhappy—if I couldn’t bear it—and killed myself?”
“Mind it! What are you talking about! Why, what do you think I’m made of? I should never have another happy moment as long as I lived. You would simply make me a miserable man for life.”
“Then I won’t do it!” she said, hurriedly. “Indeed, indeed, I won’t! Don’t look at me reproachfully, darling! Forget that I ever thought of that. It was only a moment’s frenzy, and it doesn’t really amount to anything. I give you my promise not to do it, and I know you’ll believe in that.”
“Lord, what a relief!” he said, with a great sigh. “You frightened me out of my wits; but of course you didn’t mean it. Now that you’ve promised, I feel safe. You are too good and tender to give me such a life-long sorrow as that would be. You never could have done it; but it gave me a scare. You don’t believe it now, but once it is inevitable, you’ll get over this extreme feeling about me, and be happy.”
“O Bertie,” she said, timidly, “I don’t want to make you angry, dearest, but if you only wouldn’t say that! I’m willing for you to think of me as happy, if it would comfort you, but not by losing one atom of my love for you. Try to think of it this way—that I’m happy because I love you, so that to have given you the wish of your heart makes me happier than to have the wish of my heart. Will you try?”
“Of course I will, darling. I’ll do anything on earth I can to please you. I’m sure I ought. But now,” glancing at the clock, “I must really be going. I’m obliged to get back on to-night’s train.”