“Did you love him?” asked Helen. It seemed to her the only vital point just then.
Margaret threw her hands out futilely.
“I don’t know. I was afraid of what might happen if we married. Either way it looked too dangerous. I was afraid of softening too much—of lapsing into too much caring—or of not being able to care at all. He wasn’t afraid—but I was. And—the rotten part is, Helen, that I wasn’t afraid for him but for myself.”
She was hushed for a moment and then broke out again.
“It wasn’t for myself as myself. It was just that if our marriage hadn’t been a miracle of success, it would have proved the case against women again.”
“You mustn’t think any more than you can help,” said Helen. “It wasn’t like Walter to want to cause you pain and I know he wouldn’t want you to suffer now.”
“No, he was willing to do all the suffering,” said Margaret in bitter self-mockery. “He did it too.”
She got hold of herself by one swift motion of her well-controlled mind and stood up, brushing her hair back with the gesture Walter loved. “It’s not your burden, poor girl. You have enough.”
“Not so many,” said Helen. “By the way, Margaret, you haven’t heard about Freda Thorstad, have you?”
“Did she come back?”