"I'm afraid I have pained you," Tilly said, after a moment, and she put her hand on his shoulder as if to make him look at her. "I wish I knew some other way, but I know of none."
"There is no other way," he declared, his hungry eyes now on her face, the marvel of which still held him enthralled. In all his dreams of her she had never appeared so transcendently wonderful.
"How could she ever have been mine—actually mine?" he asked himself from the abyss into which he was sinking.
"You see," she went on, now taking his hand into hers, "I'd have to tell Joel. I'm his wife, the mother of his children, and there can be nothing in my life that is not open to him. He is the soul of honor, John."
"I know it," John answered, simply.
"This thing is killing him, John," she went on, rapidly, as if taking no heed of what she was saying. "The world was against him, anyway, and the news of your being here so prosperous and successful by contrast to himself has bowed his head to the earth. I don't know what to do or what to say. He knows how I feel. You see, I couldn't hide from him the joy I felt when I heard you were living. I can bear anything now—anything! You see, Joel thinks that you—he has no reason for thinking so, of course, for you have lived up there and he here—but he thinks—it is stupid of him—but he thinks that you feel—exactly the same toward me as you did when we were married. Exactly! Exactly!"
"It wouldn't take a wise man to know that," John said, bitterly, his lips awry, his stare dull with agony.
"You mean to say that you do?" Tilly urged, her little hand pressing his spasmodically, her eyes glistening with moisture.
He nodded slowly. "How could I help it? You have done nothing to alter my feeling toward you except to deepen it. How can I overlook the fact that you befriended my mother (after I deserted her) and made her what she now is?"
"That was nothing but my duty, and my love for her," Tilly answered. She paused for a moment, and went on: