“You know very well that I’m extremely sorry about the whole matter. As for ordering that coal for Mrs. Lalor, I meant to have told you about it when we got back, you know I never can keep anything from you; I don’t want to. I forgot it when I first came home—and then you took me by surprise, someway. And now don’t you think we’ve perhaps had enough of this? I’m tired.”
“No, no; don’t go yet!” Mrs. Laurence’s hand pinioned him fast. She had known all along that she would forgive him when she had spoken her mind—what else can one do but forgive when one loves? Oh, that was but a little part of it—the forgiveness! The real need all the time was that he should be reinstated on the pedestal from which his own act had driven him. He must be, not the Will whom she forgave, but the Will whom she adored. Her certainty dropped from her; she began reasonably, to grow more and more tremulously beseeching.
“Will, please listen! I can’t bear it when you look at me as if you didn’t like me. Of course, I knew all the time that you were sorry—I knew you meant to tell me the truth! Of course, you can’t always think of it at the moment when I take you by surprise and fly at you and scold you—nobody could! I don’t wonder that you hate to tell me things, when I make it so hard for you. I ought to be a hundred times nicer than I am. When I saw her husband standing there to-night you looked so fine and beautiful and good—and truthful”—a sob, not tears, but just a sob broke athwart the words—“I thank God every day on my knees that I’m married to you!”
Her arms dropped from their hold, but his were around her now, pressing her closer, and still closer; the eyes he bent upon the upturned face were smiling, yet a little moist, too—his tender voice had in it every admission that she longed for as he whispered:
“Oh, Nan—foolish, foolish Nan! Such a sweet woman——!”