"Because I—I think more of you than of anyone else."
"Oh, if you think it's your duty you'd better tell me."
He told her, and she sat up straight, looking at him; she got up and walked slowly to the opposite side of the room, he gazing at her. He reproached himself for telling her. She was young, lived apart from the great crowd, and could not understand. He could not see her face, for she stood with her back toward him, but displeasure has many countenances, and he could see that his story had offended her. Her head was slightly bowed, and she was no doubt weeping; he heard her sob. Then she had loved him, and her love was dying. But he did not dare to go to her, to the death of the love he had murdered. Suddenly she turned about. Her face was radiant, and she was laughing. He stared at her in amazement.
"It is exactly what you ought to have done," she said.
"And I am not lowered in your estimation?"
"For being a truer man than any man I have ever known? Oh, no."
Yes, she had turned round, laughing, but there were tear stains on her checks. He did not know that she had passed through a struggle of doubt to reach laughter. Surely she was a strange creature, worthy of being loved and capable of loving; but he did not tell her that he loved her. The words were warm in his heart, but felt cool upon his lips, and he did not utter them. He talked in a round-about way, in an emotional skirmish, he afterward said to himself, and then took his leave, as the Judge and Florence had returned. Just outside he met Bodney coming in. "Oh, by the way, the very man I want to see, Mr. Bodney. I want a talk with you."
Bodney thought that the preacher was going to thank him again for the money sent to the church, to tell him how much good it had done. "I will walk along with you," he said.
"This is a peculiar world," remarked the preacher, as they strode along, side by side.
"You might almost say a damnable world," Bodney replied.