She said she would have hated him to be unhappy.
“But,”—he was getting very uncomfortable: he wished Shan’t would come and bury him in the sand, as she was wont to do—deep, deep, deep. “But,” he went on desperately, “I might not have been unhappy—”
“Not if your wife had died? I should have hated that—I mean I should hate you to be—shallow. I know you would have been heart-broken: I should wish you to be.” That settled it, once and for all—
“Why?” Marcus felt he was now paddling in pathos. He saw himself a widower walking to church with a child on either side: their hands in his.
“Because I want you to think rather wonderfully of marriage—and married life.”
Marcus said hastily that he could not think of them at all.
“Why—you must—for my sake. You will—if I ask you to.”
“Because there are reasons” (there were none, of course) “I can never marry.”
“I—am—so sorry—” There was a terrific silence—an impossible silence.
She broke it gently—broke it as softly as the waves broke upon the sands. “But you won’t mind if I do?”