Winifred looked at him aghast. “All these years!” It was a revelation intolerable at first shock to a woman that was no coquette.
“I think it was all the time dimly in my mind what your last year had been; at last I went out of my life and into yours. I want you to understand that I do not think of it with bitterness, because I entered so little into it; I realize, Winifred”—his voice broke from its steadiness—“that you have been good, good in it all. If you had not been—if you had trifled with me—I think I should be at the bottom of the river to-day. But since no one has wronged me,” he went on more quietly, “since nothing monstrous or unnatural has befallen me, everything I believed in has the same claim on me as ever.
“And I want you to know that you need not mind my love, Winifred.” She dropped her eyes and stood mute. “It is something you may be willing and glad to have without troubling yourself because you cannot return it. For any pain that has happened, do not trouble yourself about that either—if I don’t mind it, you needn’t,” he said, smiling a little, with a certain manly sweetness quite new to him. “I find one gains something in having no longer to struggle with pain and try to keep her at arm’s length.”
She looked up then, and cried out passionately. “O Will, Will, if only there was anything in all this world I could do to make it up to you!”
“There is nothing to make up,” he said. “I would rather have pain from you than pleasure from any one else. But there is something that you can do; this: not to feel my love a burden laid upon you, an annoyance or trespass, an anxiety or self-reproach—or anything that will make you want to get rid of it,” he finished, smiling again; “and to let me give you all I wish, on the condition that I ask no return. And if, in a few years, I should ask to come and live near you, and be good friends—may I? It would be hard,” he urged, less quietly, “that I should have to lose your friendship, when I ask nothing more. Would you take away the crumbs from me, just because I have lost the loaf?”
“Is that best, Will?” she began, anxious and hesitating. “Oh, I mean for you. It isn’t possible that you can always—think of me—so. There is no reason. If you do not see me—somebody else—”
“Have I been seeing you these dozen years?” he said, very gently. “You may trust me to know what is best for me. Why think—think a moment, dear friend, and you will understand. You, of all people, can understand the plane I want you to take me on.”
Winifred’s eyes kindled and her face flushed. “I see. I do understand. I can meet you on your own plane, and I can trust your friendship and you. I am not afraid to have you come—after a year or two.”
“Thank you,” he said, shaken as he had not been.