‘Why?’
‘Because I felt myself unworthy of you.’
‘That was foolish.’
‘No, dear, it was wise and right. You are like a happy child, Laura; your past is a blank page, it has no dark secrets——’
He felt her trembling as he spoke. Had his words frightened her? Did she begin to divine the dangers that hemmed him around?
‘Dearest, I don’t want to alarm you; but in the past experience of a man of my age there is generally one page he would give ten years of his life to cancel. I have a dark page. Oh, my love, my love, if I felt myself really worthy of you my heart would hardly hold my happiness. It would break with too great a joy. Men’s hearts have so broken. When did I begin to love you? Why, on the night I first entered this house—the cheerless winter night, when I came, like the prodigal son, weary of the husks and the stye, vaguely yearning for some better life. Your thrilling eyes, your grave, sweet smile, your tender voice, came upon me like the revelation of a new world, in which womanhood meant goodness and purity and truth. My senses were as yet unmoved by your beauty; my mind reverenced your goodness. You were no more to me than a picture in a gallery, but you thrilled my soul as the picture might have done; you awakened new thoughts, you opened a door into heaven. Yes, Laura, admiration, reverence, worship, those began on the first night. Before I left Hazlehurst, worship had warmed into passionate love.’
‘Yet you stayed away from January to April!’
‘My absence was one long conflict with my love.’
‘And from April to December—after——’
‘After you had shown me your heart, dear love, and I knew that you might be mine. That last absence needed a more desperate courage. Well, I came back, you see. Love was stronger than wisdom.’