"No," I smiled; "Gertrude made that fairly plain, for once. And your storm did sweep off the worst of the fog! You see, Gertrude has, intensely, the virtues of her defects—a fastidious sense of honor among them. Once she felt her suspicions unjust, she was bound to acknowledge it. I can't say you won a friend, but you did—by some miracle—placate a dangerous foe."
"Is she coming back to you, Ambo?"
"No. She suggests divorce. But that of course is impossible!"
"Why?"
"Is it kind to ask?" said Miss Goucher. "And—forgive me, dear—after your decision, is it necessary for you to know?"
Susan reflected anxiously. "No," she finally responded, "it isn't kind; but it is necessary. I'll tell you why, Ambo. If you had been free, I think there's no doubt I should have married you. Oh, I know, dear, it sounds cold-blooded like that! But the point is, I shouldn't then have questioned things as I do now. My feeling for you—your need of me—they wouldn't have been put to the test. Now they have been—or rather, they're being tested, every minute of every hour. Suppose I should ask you now—meaning every word of it—to divorce Mrs. Hunt so you could marry me? At least you'd know then, wouldn't you, that simply being yours meant more to me than anything else in life? Or suppose I couldn't bring myself to ask it, but couldn't face life without you? Suppose I drowned myself——"
"Good God, dear!"
"I'm not going to, Ambo—and what's equally important, neither are you. Why, you don't even pause over Mrs. Hunt's suggestion! You don't even wait to ask my opinion! You say at once—it's impossible! That proves something, doesn't it—about you and me? It either proves we're not half so much in love as we think we are, or else that love isn't for either of us the only good thing in life—the whole show." She paused, but added: "Why can't you consider divorcing Mrs. Hunt, Ambo? After all, she isn't honestly your wife and doesn't want to be; it would only be common fairness to yourself."
Miss Goucher stirred uneasily in her chair. I stirred uneasily in mine.
"There are so many reasons," I fumbled. "I suppose at bottom it comes to this—a queer feeling of responsibility, of guilt even. . . ."