"Please—please don't think of it—"
"There is no use thinking of it. Still, I wanted you to know that I really meant it—I believed it could be done. Of course I don't know how much you really wanted it."
"Wanted it? I'd 'ave given half my life for a year of it."
Lucia's hand, laid lightly on the table's edge, felt a strong vibration communicated to it from Mr. Rickman's arm. She looked up, in time to see his white face quiver before he hid it with his hand.
"I'm so sorry. Did it mean so much to you?"
He smiled through his agony at the cause assigned to it. "I'm not thinking of that. What it means to me—what it always will mean is your goodness—in thinking of it. In thinking of it now."
It was his nearest approach to a sympathetic allusion.
She did not wince (perceptibly), but she ignored the allusion.
"Oh, that's nothing. You would have been of great use to me. If I thought of helping you at all, my idea was simply—how shall I put it?—to make up in some way for the harm I've done you."
"What harm have you ever done me?"