“Poor Cousin Pamela!” He just pressed her fingers, then gently pushed them away, as if they were a danger. “You must forget him. You are free.”
“I was always free. But I went away. I left you for him.”
They looked deeply into each other’s eyes. Until that moment they had not trusted themselves to embark on a long, steady gaze. She saw in Jethro’s nothing but intense, almost brotherly, affection and pity.
“You might leave me again to go to him?” he asked quietly.
“I don’t know—I think, never. But I don’t know—so long as he is alive.”
“You are free. But he isn’t. He can’t marry you—can’t make it up to you.”
“Can’t make an honest woman of me,” she said, with bitter bluntness. “That is what the women say about here when they force the young men to marry their daughters. No, he cannot. But that would make no difference to me—if he wanted me. He was first. I don’t even hate him. Sometimes I think I am getting indifferent; but I felt like that before, when he was in prison. I never know—unless he dies. That would break the terrible spell.”
He looked into her eyes again; he gave her hand a significant grip. They understood each other. They were to be cousins—nothing more. Nothing more was possible—she wasn’t even sure that she desired more, and she feared that he did not. Nothing was possible now. Their love had come to a full stop.
He got up, saying:
“I’ll go and speak to Gainah. I’ll prepare her. She’s getting old, and surprises upset her.”