She waited.
"You are my best friend," the words continued.
She waited again, but he said nothing more.
She drove herself on. "And yet you could—stay away two months?—till I sent for you?"
He stood up, and walked to the window and stood as if looking through it—though the shade was drawn. She saw the fingers at his back writhing and knotting themselves. She waited, unwinking, hardly breathing, all her life in the tumultuous beating of her heart.
He turned about. His face was almost wild. "I stayed away—because I love you——" His last word was a gasp, and he did not have the strength to say the rest.
It had come! Her great strain over, she fairly collapsed in a swooning happiness. Her head drooped, and she swayed forward till her elbows were on her knees. For a moment she existed only in her great, vague, reeling joy. Then she heard a spasmodic gasp, and heard his hoarse words add:
"And because—I am married."
Her head uprose slowly, and she looked at him, looked at him, with a deadly stupefaction in her eyes. A sickening minute passed. "Married?" she whispered.
"Yes—married."