“I was mad, I tell you,” said Trevor.
Cecily looked at him with a species of sad contempt. “Oh! Trevor,” she said; then she burst into tears.
Mr. Fawcett was beside her in an instant. He thought he had prevailed. “You do care for me still. I know you do,” he cried triumphantly.
But the girl quickly disengaged herself from his embrace.
“Listen to me,” she said firmly. “I do not care for you now; I have ceased to love you as I must have loved the man I married. But it is not true that I did not love you. I cannot remember the time when it did not seem to me natural to think of myself as belonging to you. You were a great part of my life. But I see now that you did not understand my love for you. You doubted it, because it was calm and deep and had grown up gradually. So perhaps, perhaps, it is best as it is; best, if it was not the kind of love that would have satisfied you, that it should have died.”
“You don’t know what you are saying,” he persisted. “It cannot have died. You are not the kind of woman to change so suddenly, nor could that sort of love die so quickly.”
“It did not die—you killed it,” she replied. “You killed it when you killed my faith in you. Trevor, it is useless to blind yourself to the truth. I can only tell you the fact. I do not know if it is unwomanly. I do not know if there are nobler natures than mine who would feel differently; I can only tell you what I feel. If Geneviève were not in existence, if she were away for ever, married to some one else perhaps, it would make no difference. Knowing you as I do now I could never marry you; I could never love you again.”
He was convinced at last; he felt that, as she said, she was only stating a fact over which she had no longer any control. He leant his arms upon the table and hid his face in them and said no more.
“I did not think you would care so much,” said Cicely simply, while the tears ran down her cheeks.
“Care,” he repeated bitterly. “I wonder after all if you do know what caring means, Cicely.” Then he was silent.