"If she had loved you," said Bee's pitying voice, "it would have been worse for you to bear; you would have had a harder trial. She couldn't have married you. It would have been wrong."
He raised his head. "Because I'm what I am?" he asked.
"No," she said—and her wet eyes did not fall before him—"because of what your child would be.... Had you ever thought of that?"
"Yes. For my own childhood seems the other day."
"I know—I've heard your letter; don't grudge me having heard it. Your child would suffer too, not so deeply, perhaps, but the world wouldn't be kind to him; if your child were a girl, God knows the world wouldn't be kind to her.... It is a very barren world for some of us, but we oughtn't to steal our joy, ought we? We oughtn't to make others pay for it. You know that; Hilda would know it. She couldn't have been your wife."
"If she had loved me," he said, brokenly, "she wouldn't have argued so."
"The woman who loved you with all her heart and soul would have argued so," affirmed the woman.... "And you would have suffered more in knowing that she loved you, when you had to lose her. The knowledge that she loved you would have brought no light into your life; it would have made your loneliness lonelier."
"How can you say?"
"Because you are a man."
"And a woman? Would it be different with a woman?"