'Oh, if I could love him as a wife ought, I might he so happy, for he is all that is noble and good and true.'
But this was while she was smarting under the few words he had said of Harold and Maude. He, too, believed it a settled thing between the two—everybody believed it—and why should she waste her love upon one who did not care for her as she did for him? Why not encourage a love for Dick, who stood next in her heart to Harold? Questioning herself thus until there flushed upon her the recollection of Harold's voice as it had spoken to her that morning, and the look in his eyes when they rested upon her, as he said good-bye, lingering a moment as if loth to leave her, and then Dick's chance, if he had ever had any, was gone!
'I do not believe it,' she said to herself, and then, turning her face to Dick she cried: 'Oh, Dick, I am so sorry you have said this to me; sorry that you love me—in this way—for I can't—I can't—. I do love you as a friend, a brother, next to Harold, but I cannot be your wife. I cannot.'
For a moment there was perfect silence in the darkness, and then a lurid flame of lightning showed the two faces—that of the man pale as ashes, with a look of bitter pain upon it, and that of the woman, whiter than the man's and bathed in upon which fell almost as fast as the rain drops were falling tears, the pines.
Then Dick spoke, but his voice sounded strange and unnatural and a great ways off:
'If I wait a long, long time—say a year, or two, or three—do you think you could learn to love me just a little? I will not ask for much; only, Jerrie, I do hunger so for you that without you life would seem a blank.'
'No, Dick; not if you waited twenty years. I must still answer no. I cannot love you as your wife should love you, and as some good, sweet girl will one day love you when you have forgotten me.'
This is what Jerrie said to him, with much more, until he knew she was in earnest and felt as if his heart were breaking.
'I shall never forget you, Jerrie,' he said, 'or cease to hope that you will change your mind, unless—' and here he started so suddenly that the wet parasol, down which streams of water were still coursing their way to Jerrie's back, dropped from his hand and rolled off upon the bed of fine needles at his feet, just where it had been in the morning when Tom was there instead of himself—'unless there is some one between us, some other man whom you love. I will not ask you the question, but I believe I could bear it better if I knew it was because your love was already given to another, and not because of anything in me.'
For a moment Jerrie was silent; then suddenly facing Dick, she laid her hand on his and said: