“I think you would have kept me in the straight road. For I would not have dared to fall below your standards. For I”—he drew a deep, convulsive breath—“for I loved you, Katherine, better than anything in all the world!”
She trembled at the intensity of his voice.
“You loved me—like that?”
“Yes. And since I have lost you, and lost everything, there is perhaps no harm in my telling you something else. Only on that one night did I open my lips about love to you—but I have loved you through all the years since then. And ... and I still love you.”
“You still love me?” she whispered.
“I still love you.”
She stared at him.
“And yet all these months you have fought against me!”
“I have not fought against you,” he said. “Somehow, I got started in this way, and I have fought to win—have fought against exposure, against defeat.”