"Now, this was news, indeed. She was lots old older than Gerard —forty years old, if a day—and a chronic invalid. I don't know exactly what was the matter with her, but she had a bad complexion, and used to stick pretty tight is the house, and was always absorbed in church work. She had snappy black eyes, and Gerard couldn't call his soul his own. They kept house together, you know, and had been orphans ever since they were little.
"'Oh, married!' I said, pretending to be little interested.
"'It's Mr. Simpson, the curate,' he said.
"It seemed rude to be too surprised, so I just rattled off some of the usual congratulations. Gerard didn't say a word. He simply looked and looked, and there was something beautiful to me in his shame and backwardness and hesitation.
"'It's very unexpected,' he blurted out at last. 'I thought I was going to take care of her always. It is going to make a great difference in my life.'
"'I know how you always devoted yourself to her,' I said.
"'I had made up my mind never to marry,' he went on. 'How could I marry?—for it would have been like turning her out of doors. She was too ill and helpless and despondent to live by herself, and had I brought a third person into the family it would have been misery all round.'
"Still I said nothing.
"'Jess,' he said suddenly, 'don't you understand? Can't you understand?'
"In fact, I did understand very well. It explained a heap of things—why he had always acted so strangely—sometimes so devoted to me, sometimes so distant; crazy to hold my hand one day and avoiding me the next. It was no wonder he had made me utterly desperate and piqued me into accepting the captain. Then he said: 'Jess, Jess!' like that; and 'for God's sake, was it too late?'