“No,” she sighed drearily, “and if I could, nothing would be altered. Though I am mad with self-reproach, I feel that—it was all so inevitable. If he were alive and well before me this instant my feeling towards him wouldn't have changed. If he spoke to me, he would say 'My dear'—and I should loathe him. Oh, I know! It is that that makes it so awful.”
“But if you acknowledge it,” Broomhurst struck in eagerly, “will you wreck both of our lives for the sake of vain regrets? Kathleen, you never will.”
He waited breathlessly for her answer.
“I won't wreck both our lives by marrying again without love on my side,” she replied firmly.
“I will take the risk,” he said. “You have loved me—you will love me again. You are crushed and dazed now with brooding over this—this trouble, but——”
“But I will not allow you to take the risk,” Kathleen answered. “What sort of woman should I be to be willing again to live with a man I don't love? I have come to know that there are things one owes to oneself. Self-respect is one of them. I don't know how it has come to be so, but all my old feeling for you has gone. It is as though it had burnt itself out. I will not offer grey ashes to any man.”
Broomhurst looking up at her pale, set face, knew that her words were final, and turned his own aside with a groan.
“Ah!” cried Kathleen with a little break in her voice, “don't. Go away and be happy and strong, and all that I loved in you. I am so sorry—so sorry to hurt you. I——” her voice faltered miserably. “I—I only bring trouble to people.”
There was a long pause.
“Did you never think that there is a terrible vein of irony running through the ordering of this world?” she said presently. “It is a mistake to think our prayers are not answered—they are. In due time we get our heart's desire—when we have ceased to care for it.”