She stopped; something warm was on her face; she had not known that she was weeping. Suddenly, far off, she saw a glimmer of light…. Mrs. Richie's house! Her heart rose in her throat. "David," she said aloud, weakly, "David, I'm coming just as fast as I can."
But when she opened the door of the living-room in the little house that sat so close to the crumpling lap and crash of the tide, and saw him, his pipe in his hand, half rising from his chair by the fire and turning around to see who had entered, she could hardly speak his name—"David."
CHAPTER XXXVII
"… And that was Thursday; your letter had come in the first mail; and—oh, hush, hush; it was not a wicked letter, David. Don't you suppose I know that, now? I knew it—the next day. And I read it. I don't know just what happened then. I can't remember very clearly. I think I felt 'insulted.' … It sounds so foolish to say that, doesn't it? But I was just a girl then, and you know what girls are like…. David, I am not making any excuse. There isn't any excuse. I am just—telling you. I have to talk slowly; I am tired. You won't mind if I talk slowly? … I suppose I thought I had been 'insulted'; and I remember something seemed to flame up. You know how it always was with me? David, I have never been able to be angry since that day. Isn't that strange? I've never been angry since. Well, then, I went out to walk. I remember Cherry-pie called down-stairs to know if I had a clean pocket-handkerchief. I remember that; and yet I can't seem to remember why I went out to walk. … And he came up and spoke to me. Oh, I forgot to tell you: he'd been in love with me. I meant to tell you about that as soon as we were married…. Where was I?—Oh, yes; he spoke to me…."
Her voice broke with exhaustion; she closed her eyes and lay back in the big chair. David put her hand against his face, and held it there until she opened her eyes. She looked at him dumbly for a little while; then the slow, monotonous outpouring of all the silent months began again: "And I said I hated you. And he said if I married him, it would show you that I hated you. David, he was fond of me. I have to remember that. It wouldn't be fair not to remember that, would it? I was really the one to blame. Oh, I must be fair to him; he was fond of me…. And all that afternoon, after he married me, I was so glad to think how wicked I was. I knew how you would suffer. And that made me glad to be wicked…."
There was a long pause; he pulled a little shawl across her feet, and laid her hand over his eyes; but he was silent.
"Then," she said, in a whisper, "I died, I think. I suppose that is why I have never been angry since. Something was killed in me…. I've wondered a good deal about that. David, isn't it strange how part of you can die, and yet you can go on living? Of course I expected to die. I prayed all the time that I might. But I went on living;—you are glad I lived?" she said, incredulously, catching some broken murmur from behind his hands in which his face was hidden; "glad? Why, I should have thought—Well, that was the most awful time of all. The only peace I had, just single minutes of peace, was when I remembered that you hated me."
He laid his face against her knee, and she felt the fierce intake of his breath.
"You didn't hate me? Oh, don't say you didn't, David. Don't! It was the only comfort I had, to have you despise me. Although that was just at first. Afterward, last May, when you walked down to Nannie's with me that afternoon, and I thought you had got all over it, I…something seemed to be eating my heart away. That seems like a contradiction, doesn't it? I don't understand how I could feel two ways. But just at first I wanted you to hate me. I thought you would be less unhappy if you hated me; and besides, I wanted to feel the whips. I felt them—oh, I felt them!…And all the time I thought that soon I would die. But death would have been too easy. I had to go on living." There was another long silence; he kissed her hand once; but he did not speak…. "And the days went on, and went on, and went on. Sometimes I didn't feel anything; but sometimes it was like stringing sharp beads on a red-hot wire. I suppose that sounds foolish? But when his mother disinherited him, I knew I would have to go on—stringing beads. Because it would have been mean, then, to leave him. You see that, David? Besides, I was a spoiled thing, a worthless thing. If staying with him would make up for the harm I had done him,—Mrs. Maitland told me I had injured him; why of course, there was nothing else to do. I knew you would understand. So I stayed. 'Unkind to me?'" She bent forward a little to hear his smothered question. "Oh no; never. I used to wish he would be. But he—loved me"—she shuddered. "Oh, David, how I have dreamed of your arms. David . . . David . . ."
They had forgotten that each had believed love had ceased in the other; they did not even assert that it was unchanged. Nor was there any plea for forgiveness on either side. The moment was too great for that.