She did not know what a pathetic heart-cry there was in the words, but Ronald understood. He rose from his seat and before she could prevent him knelt humbly at her feet.
"Lina, you are quite right," he said, "I tried to keep myself from coming, but I could not. Can you forgive me for inflicting this pain upon you?"
She did not answer, and he took the white hand that hung listless by her side and pressed it to his lips.
"I could not keep myself from coming," he repeated; "I could not still the fever and thirst of my heart. Last night I did not sleep one hour. The knowledge that you were alive and so near me almost maddened me with mingled joy and pain. Ah! Lina, my lost love, you must forgive me for coming this once. I meant to be brave and calm. I thought it might not pain you as it did me. I thought you might have learned not to care."
The hot, passionate tears he could not repress, fell on her white hand, but she did not speak one word. There was nothing she could say. She had not "learned not to care."
She knew that her heart was beating with a fierce, wild joy because she had met him again, but she knew and faced the knowledge with brave, uncomplaining silence, that when he passed out of her life again the unhealed wound in her heart would only bleed anew.
"I thought you might have forgotten," he went on, out of his bitter anguish, "but I see now that you still remember."
"I remember—all," she said, through white lips. "It was such a happy summer—it would not be easy to forget."
"And it pains you to remember it," he said, reading her heart by the light of his own.