She looked at him reproachfully, and for a moment he thought he divined the framing of the words, "Ah, but I do love you," then she merely sighed, and looked away again.
"Is it," he went on, "that I have put myself beyond your mercy? Have I become too notorious a vagabond?" He laughed bitterly. "Well, it is all true; I am come through all the highways and byways of life, and I am touched with the scum of it all. Perhaps you are right. I am not worthy. And yet—I only ask for forgiveness, and a little love. With that, I might—be able to—sink the bitterness of the days behind. But, as I said, I dare say you are right. Shall we go into the other room?"
"Oh, Dick," she sighed, "how hard you make it! Dick, it is—it is I that am not worthy." She put her hands to her face suddenly, and pressed them feverishly to her cheeks and eyes, and then started as if to go away.
Lancaster took her hand and kissed it. "Dorothy," he said, "Don't talk nonsense! Unworthy of me—of a man who has used the world as a playground, and exhausted his days in satiating curiosity! Ah, no! That is impossible. There is no one, Dorothy—no one, however wretched, who would not be worthy of me."
"You don't understand," she wailed, "you don't understand! I—" she hid her face in her hands again, "I have sinned!"
He put his arm about her, and whispered, "What does it matter Dorothy, if only you love me? Do you, Dorothy, do you love me?"
She sobbed, silently almost. Then she looked up, and, as if she were defining a happiness that could never be, said, "Yes, Dick, I love you." Then, as he covered her brow with kisses, she shuddered in his arms, and again moaned, "But you don't know, you don't understand!"
He smoothed the tears from her eyes, and looked tenderly upon her. "Yes, dear, I do." He burst into a fierce trumpet of rage. "That cad, Wooton, —he told me some damnable lies...! He was drunk...!"
She shrank away from him. "Ah, then, you see it is quite—impossible!"
"Dorothy," he said, "I am not speaking of that, am I, dear? I am asking you to have pity on me, to help me see that there are bright and tender and true things in life. I tell you that, past or no past, you are as high above me as the stars. Why must we listen to the old shibboleths, Dorothy? Have you not spent a lifetime of regret to atone for a moment of folly? And who am I to judge? I, in whom there is no more of whiteness left, save only that I love you! Consider, dear, if this is not to be, what our lives will be! For me, all the old bitterness, the efforts to drown all things in laughter. For you—memories! But if you say 'yes,' Dorothy, think! How different the world will seem! We will go and live in the country, close to the heart of Nature. All the noise and noisomenesses of this town-world will be shut out; we will forget it. For you, dear, I will work as I never worked before. Think, dear—think of the dear old, silent, restful hills of Lincolnville! How the insects hum in the clear nights; how blue, how deep, how tender the sky seems there; how the very flowers seem to wear more natural faces than do those of town! Do you remember how, in summer, we used to go camping by the river? The simple pleasures, the healthy out-door life—can you not believe that it would make new creatures of us two, Dorothy? The house—think of the house we would plan, the orchard, the garden! And are we to lose all that, dear, for a whim? Dorothy," he held out both his hands to her, "see, Dorothy, I ask you to let me not see happiness only to lose it?"