"But you can never forgive me?"
"Why distress yourself? If for a moment I hesitated to come, it was because I knew it would be distressing for you. Perhaps a refusal would have been kinder after all."
"No, no; I was sure you wouldn't refuse. She doubted; but I was sure. I said you'd come when you heard about me."
"Is it so serious? What is it? Tell me; I know nothing."
"It's my lungs: they were never very strong, you remember. The doctor told me in Duluth: 'Perhaps a year,' if I am 'very careful.' I'm not very careful—it'll soon be all over. Don't look like that! Why should you care? I don't care—I don't want to live a bit. Only——Do you think, if—if there's anything afterwards, that a woman who's gone wrong like me will be punished?"
"For God's sake," he said, "don't talk so!"
"But do you? It makes one think of these things when one knows one has only a very little time to live. You can't forgive me—you said so."
"I do," he said; "I forgive you freely. If I could undo your wretchedness by giving my life for you, I'd give it. You don't know how I loved you—what it meant to me to find you gone! Ah, Mamie, how could you do it?"
The tears stood in her eyes, as she lifted her white face to him.
"I'm ashamed!" she moaned. "What can I say?"