His eyes fell directly, and with a few inarticulate words he lifted his hat and stood aside to let her pass. But Lily did not move. Perhaps if he had not looked so very ill, and something more than ill, she might have lacked courage to disregard his gesture; as it was, pity held her there.
“Mr. Macpherson,” she said, in a low, grieved voice, “am I to pass by without a word?”
He could not speak. It was like the last glimpse of light to the prisoner condemned to life-long darkness to have her standing there. How was he to bid her go?
“What have we done?” Lily asked. “What has happened?”
Macpherson looked up, pale and agitated. “I am not ungrateful,” he said, barely able to control his voice. “Oh, don’t think that, Miss Echalaz.”
“I can’t think that,” said Lily, simply; “but something is wrong if, after all that has happened, you try to treat me as an utter stranger.”
He felt she was hurt, and looked up melted, penitent, ready to give himself any pain, undergo any humiliation, to heal the wound he had made.
“Miss Echalaz,” he said, “I wanted to spare you—and myself too—I—I am blind and bewildered—I have been very selfish—perhaps it is wrong now to tell you—I don’t know—I can’t tell—” he stopped, and there was a moment’s absolute silence covering wild confusion and conflict in his heart, and then he looked up and the words came, he knew not how, steady and clear, “I love you, Miss Echalaz.” They were scarcely spoken before he was condemning himself again. “Oh! Laugh at me—” He laughed too as he spoke, not knowing what he did till he saw her face change and the tears start from her eyes.
“Does it seem to you a thing for laughter?” she asked, passionately. “Have you judged me a woman to laugh at the love of the noblest man I know? To hold it so very cheap that you need not even tell me—”
“How could I tell you?” he broke out. “What could I offer in exchange for all I would ask you to lay down? Could I ask you to come and live in this wilderness in the barest poverty, where half the year is winter, where there is no—no society, nothing but work and hardship and loneliness?”