“I fear Professor Fortescue is very ill,” said Valeria restlessly.
Her face was flushed, and her eyes burnt.
“I fear he is,” said Hadria sadly.
“If—if he were to die——” Hadria gave a low, horrified exclamation.
“Surely there is no danger of that!”
“Of course there is: he told me that he did not expect to recover.”
Valeria was crouching before the fire, with a look of blank despair. Hadria, pale to the lips, took her hand gently and held it between her own. Valeria’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. “Ah, Hadria, you will understand, you will not despise me—you will only be sorry for me—why should I not tell you? It is eating my heart out—have you never suspected, never guessed——?”
Hadria, with a startled look, paused to consider, and then, stroking back the beautiful white hair with light touch, she said, “I think I have known without knowing that I knew. It wanted just these words of yours to light up the knowledge. Oh, Valeria, have you carried this burden for all these years?”
“Ever since I first met him, which was just before he met his wife. I knew, from the first, that it was hopeless. He introduced her to me shortly after his engagement. He was wrapped up in her. With him, it was once and for all. He is not the man to fall in love and out of it, over and over again. We were alike in that. With me, too, it was once for all. Oh, the irony of life!” Valeria went on with an outburst of energy, “I was doomed to doom others to similar loss; others have felt for me, in vain, what I, in vain, felt for him! I sent them all away, because I could not bring myself to endure the thought of marrying any other man, and so I pass my days alone—a waif and stray, without anything or anyone to live for.”
“At least you have your work to live for, which is to live for many, instead of for one or two.”