“If you had lived I would have loved you!”
How he had treasured those words, hugged them to his heart in rapture, found in them a palliation for his deceit.
“If you had lived I would have loved you!”
She would have loved him, knowing he was a Ludington, a son of the man her grandfather despised. She would have loved him despite that barrier, her sweet, girlish lips had frankly told him so as she gazed with pity and sorrow into his dying eyes.
Her words had come true. He had wooed and won sweet Eva, believing that his deception was no great harm at all, since she had in a manner consented to it in the impulsive words with which she bade him, as she believed, an eternal adieu.
But with her last words, uttered under the stress of terrible shock, she was gainsaying her former declaration, cutting the ground from beneath his feet.
There was a breathless moment in which they gazed silently into each other’s anguished eyes, searching each the other’s heart, while every one wondered what would be the outcome.
The young doctor’s dark-blue eyes, beautiful, tender, troubled, like some hunted creature’s at bay, mutely implored her pardon and her love. Hers, wild, incredulous, agonized, were seeking and finding the startling truth.
Yes, she recognized him now, understood her subtle, half recognition of him all along.
Oh, why had she been so blind that a little alteration in his personal appearance had misled her so fatally that she had been tricked into a misplaced love, had found heaven in his presence, bliss in his voice, and touch, and glance, happiness with him and no one else.