“Perhaps I am a fool to tell you,” he began; “it may make you unhappy, and”—
A startled look came into Amy’s eyes; then the color flooded up into her face. She lifted her head with a beautiful, imperious gesture, and stopped him with a word.
“I—understand. Don’t tell me. I—understand.” She bit her lip as she spoke, and her eyelids quivered as though the tears had risen suddenly.
“You understand?” he repeated, in a puzzled voice; “do you mean you don’t want me to tell you?”
“William,” she said, in a low voice, “I do not think a woman has any business with a good man’s life in the past; if—he was not good. I am not a young girl. I am old enough to know that a man’s life and a girl’s life are—different; but don’t tell me. I—love you. Don’t tell me.” She trembled as she spoke, and then her eyes sought his, filled with love and grief.
A wave of tenderness made his whole face melt and quiver. He murmured something of his undesert of such love as this:—
“You are not like other women,” he told her, as every lover has told his mistress since the sun first shone on lovers. “That sin, the mean woman does not forgive. And yet it is so much more pardonable than some other sins! More pardonable, dear, than what I want to tell you.”
She drew a quick breath and smiled. “Ah,” she said, “I’m glad it is not that!” Her relief was so apparent that he realized how austerely sweet her face had been as she forgave him.
“Go on and tell me,” she said; “I am not afraid to hear anything now.”
“That would have been the hardest thing to forgive?” he asked her. She flashed a look of pride at him.