"Why?" I could not help enquiring.
"Because I was afraid you would," he said meaningly—"and she doesn't need it. Where two hearts are in love with each other and their work—I wouldn't ask any higher heaven than that." Then he sighed; although, as I have said, he wasn't much given to sighing.
Then came my question. For days I had been burning to ask it; yet I marvel that I was ever bold enough to form the words.
"You talk like a specialist on that subject. Were you ever in love, Mr. Laird?" I shot the words out quickly; otherwise they never would have come.
He turned with swift movement and looked at me. It seemed to me he looked me over from head to foot, though I knew he wouldn't do anything so rude. The paleness was all gone now, I noticed, and I thought his lip trembled a little. It was a moment before he spoke.
"You've been very kind in giving me your confidence, haven't you, Miss Helen?" he asked, very gravely and slowly.
I stammered out my answer. "Forgive me, Mr. Laird," I began penitently; "I had no right to say what I did. And if I've told you anything about—about me and Charlie—it was only because it seemed easy to do it—because I wanted to. Because I trusted you," I added, wishing some one would suddenly appear.
But no one did, and Mr. Laird seemed so dreadfully calm. I was waiting, intending to say something more, when he went serenely on.
"Well, I can trust you, too," he said; "and it seems easy to tell you. And, anyhow, I don't know why I shouldn't. Yes, I was in love once, long ago. And I was engaged to be married," he continued, in that same tone of reverence with which he always spoke of matters such as this. "But it's long ago now—it was while I was in my second year in the university. And I had to give her up"—he smiled as he turned his eyes on mine—"had to give her up for another man. Her father, like mine, was a shepherd, and she was bright as a sunbeam and as pure as the dewdrop in the dell—that's a line from an old Scotch song," he interjected, smiling rather more broadly than I thought he should have done in mid-narrative of a tragedy like that. "But a fellow came home from across the sea—from Australia—and he was very rich."
"Did she give you up for him?" I asked, indignation in my voice.