“I’d rather question a younger, fairer Fate, hoping that she will give me an answer both true and kind. May I, Christie?”
“I will be true but—I cannot be kind.” It cost her much to say that; yet she did it steadily, though he held her hand in both his own, and waited for her words with ardent expectation.
“Not yet perhaps,—but in time, when I have proved how sincere my love is, how entire my repentance for the ungenerous words you have not forgotten. I wanted you then for my own sake, now I want you for yourself, because I love and honor you above all women. I tried to forget you, but I could not; and all these years have carried in my heart a very tender memory of the girl who dared to tell me that all I could offer her was not worth her love.”
“I was mistaken,” began Christie, finding this wooing much harder to withstand than the other.
“No, you were right: I felt it then and resented it, but I owned it later, and regretted it more bitterly than I can tell. I’m not worthy of you; I never shall be: but I’ve loved you for five years without hope, and I’ll wait five more if in the end you will come to me. Christie, I need you very much!”
If Mr. Fletcher had gone down upon his knees and poured out the most ardent protestations that ever left a lover’s lips, it would not have touched her as did that last little appeal, uttered with a break in the voice that once was so proud and was so humble now.
“Forgive me!” she cried, looking up at him with real respect in her face, and real remorse smiting her conscience. “Forgive me! I have misled you and myself. I tried to love you: I was grateful for your regard, touched by your fidelity, and I hoped I might repay it; but I cannot! I cannot!”
“Why?”
Such a hard question! She owed him all the truth, yet how could she tell it? She could not in words, but her face did, for the color rose and burned on cheeks and forehead with painful fervor; her eyes fell, and her lips trembled as if endeavoring to keep down the secret that was escaping against her will. A moment of silence as Mr. Fletcher searched for the truth and found it; then he said with such sharp pain in his voice that Christie’s heart ached at the sound:
“I see: I am too late?”