“It seems to me it’s rather late to bring up that question,” he responded.
“I know, I know! I have nothing to say for myself—except that I didn’t know, I couldn’t realize. It’s something I must tell you—how I have come to feel—that I ought not to marry you, that you ought not to want me to marry you, while things are like this. You must know this, so that if I marry you, the responsibility will be yours!”
“And you think that is fair of you?” he demanded, his voice grown suddenly hard.
He meant to rebuke her, and she felt that he had a right to rebuke her; but the wave of emotion which swept her along was not to be controlled by her reason. “Oh, you are going to be angry about it!” she cried. “How horrible of you!”
He exclaimed, “Sylvia! Can you expect me not to be hurt?”
“I told you that I couldn’t help it! I told you in the very beginning that you would have to take me as I was, and be satisfied if I did my best! I told you that again and again—that I loved another man, that I love him still—”
She stopped. A spasm of pain crossed his face—followed by a look of fear. He hesitated, and then, his voice low and trembling, he began, “Sylvia, forgive me. I know that you are right—that you are trying to do your best. I will be patient. You must be patient with me also.”
She stood, her head bowed, ashamed of what she had said. Yet—she felt that he ought to have heard it. “I hate to seem unfair,” she whispered, her voice almost breaking. “I don’t want to give you pain, but I can’t help these feelings, and I know it’s my duty to tell you of them. I don’t see how you can go on—I should think you would be afraid to marry me!”
For answer he caught her hands, exclaiming, “I will take my chances! I love you, and I will never rest until you love me!”