"I am free. There is no law forbidding me to remember. I can go on caring, so long as he does not know. It will do no harm if here, far away, where he will never suspect it, I continue to love him."
"Oh, my dear, my dear!"
"I cannot give up my love. It is all I have now. Oh, I do not mean to mourn over it, pity myself, make life unhappy. Instead, I shall be glad, thankful. You will see. This experience will make every day of living richer. You need have no fears for me, Sylvia. You warned me, you know," concluded she with a pathetic little smile.
"I was a brute! I ought to have shielded you more," the girl cried. "I could have, had I realized. Well, I can yet do something, thank heaven. Give me that check."
"What do you mean to do?"
"Return it, of course—return it before Stanley Heath leaves town. Isn't that what you want done? Surely you do not wish to keep it."
"No! No!"
"I'll take it over to Elisha Winslow's now, this minute."
"I wonder—yes, probably that will be best. You won't, I suppose, be allowed to see Stanley," speculated she timidly.