“I must.”
“But I am rich,” you protested. “The money is nothing to me. You shall not ruin your career to pay it. I scorn myself when I think that I refused to see you that night, and so lost my only chance of saving you from what followed. My cowardice, my wicked cowardice! It drove you to death’s door by overwork, to give me wealth I do not know how to spend. You parted with your library that I might let money lie idle in bank. I forced you to sell your book—your fame—to that thief. Oh, Donald, think of the wrong it has done already, and don’t make it do greater!”
“Maizie, you do not understand”—
“I understand it all,” you interrupted. “You must not—you shall not—I won’t take it—I”—
“For his sake!”
“But I love him, too!” you pleaded. “Don’t you see, Donald, that it was never the money,—that was nothing; but they told me his love—and yours, for they said you had known all the time—was only pretense, a method by which you might continue to rob me. And I came to believe it,—though I should have known better,—because, since you never wrote, it seemed to me you had both dropped me out of your thoughts as soon as you could no longer plunder me. Even then, scorning you,—like you in your feeling over my neglect of your letters,—I could not help loving you, for those Paris and Tyrol days were the happiest I have ever known; and though I knew, Don, that I ought to forget you, as I believed you had forgotten me, I could not do so. I have never dared to speak in public of either of you, for fear I should break down. Try as I might, I could not help loving you both as I have never loved any one else. That I turned you away from my house was because I did not dare to meet you,—I knew I could not control myself. After the man took the message, I sobbed over having to insult you by sending it by a servant. But for my want of courage—had I seen you as I ought—If I had only understood, as your journal has made me,—had only known that my name was on his lips when he died! No money could pay for what he gave to me. Could he ask me now for twice the sum, it would be my pleasure to give it to him, for I love him dearly, and”—
“If you love him, Maizie, you will let me clear his name as far as lies within my power.”
For an instant you were silent, and then said softly, “You are right, Donald, we will clear his name.”
I took your hand and touched it to my lips. “To hear you speak of him”—I could go no further, in my emotion.
There was a pause before you asked, “Donald, do you remember our talk here last autumn?”