"I saw him once," said Scarlett, "and I found it out. I saw him again—just passed him in the road, and we did not say a word. But I was doubly sure, if that were possible. Poor devil! If he could have had his way we should not have met in the lane that day, Barbara."
"I never dreamed of it," she said. "I thought he hated me."
"If a girl thinks a man hates her," said Adrian, "I suppose the chances are he does one thing or the other."
"I never dreamed of it," she repeated, "never, till he told me at the end. It could not be my fault, could it, as I did not know? But it seemed so cruel—so hard! He had cared for me all the time, he said, and nobody had ever cared for him."
"You mustn't be unhappy about that," said Scarlett, gently.
"But that's just it!" Barbara exclaimed, plaintively. "I ought to be unhappy, and I can't be. Adrian! I've got all the happiness—a whole world full of it—and he had none. I must be a heartless wretch to stand here, and think of him, and be so glad because——"
Because her hand was on Adrian's arm.
"My darling," he said, in a tone half tenderly jesting, half earnest, "you mustn't blame yourself for this. What had you to do with it? Do you think you could have made that poor fellow happy?"
She looked at him perplexed.
"He loved me," she said.