“For you to go away—never to see me again—that may be the best thing—the right thing for you. It will hurt you, of course—terribly—for a while. And then, inevitably you—you will find some one else—some other woman who will make you happy.” Her voice trembled a little but she still spoke evenly.
“That is what the future holds for you, Gerald. Are you sure you are not thinking only of yourself when you say we must never see each other again? What about me?”
“You! Why, Ruth—”
“What does the future hold for me? You haven’t thought of that, have you, Gerald? Not another love like ours—that is open to you—but not to me.
“You have known me now two years. You know Will—the sort of man he is—” I took a new grip on myself at this mention of my name; I would hear them out.
“You know Will,” she repeated; a new note of passion came into her voice. “You know how empty, how utterly devoid of everything that makes a life worth living mine was until you came into it. All that is in the past. But the future—have you thought what you are condemning me to in the future? Have you thought of that, Gerald?”
He avoided her eyes. “I love you,” he said. “There will be no other love for me. I have thought it all over—I have faced it—and I cannot—will not—take our happiness in dishonor.”
She leaned over the tea-tray and put both her hands on his shoulders, forcing him to look at her.
“I love you, Gerald,” she said. “Look at me. I love you with all the love I once thought I felt for him—the love he did not—could not—understand. Do you realize what you have brought me with your love? How you have filled that emptiness that was killing me? How you have—have made my dreams—all those vague little ideals that fill every girl’s heart—do you realize how you have made them all come true?
“You have won my love, Gerald. Are you going to cast it away—and leave me nothing—because you say that to take it would be dishonorable?”