The girl sank on the seat and covered her face with her hands. He touched her shoulder and her hair with his finger-tips, and she shivered away from him. "Oh, Bob—Bob, Bob!—" she cried in agony, still looking at the grass before her.
The young man looked at her in perplexity. "Why, dear—why—why, darling—why, Molly," he stammered, "why—why—"
She rose and faced him. She gripped herself, and he could feel the unnatural firmness in her voice as she spoke.
"Bob, I am not the little girl you left." He put out his arms, but she shrank back among the lilacs; their perfume was in her face, and she was impressed with that odd feeling one sometimes has of having had some glimpse of it all before. She knew that she would say, "I am not worthy—not worthy any more—Bob, do you understand?"
And when he had stepped to ward her again with piteous pleading face,—a face that she had never seen before, yet seemed always to have known,—she felt that numb sense of familiarity with it all, and it did not pain her as she feared it would when he cried, "Oh—God, Molly—nothing you ever could do would make you unworthy of me—Molly, Molly, what is it?" The anguish in his face flashed back from some indefinite past to her, and then the illusion was gone, and the drama was all new. He caught her, but she fought herself away.
"Don't—don't!" she cried; "you have no right—now." She dropped into the seat, while he stood over her with horror on his face. She answered the question of his eyes, rocking her body as she spoke, "Bob—do you understand now?" He shook his head, and she went on, "We aren't engaged—not any more, Bob—not any more—never!" He started to speak, but she said: "I'm going to marry Mr. Brownwell. Oh, Bob—Bob, I told you I was unworthy—now do you understand?"
The man turned his face starward a second, and then dropped his head. "Oh," he groaned, and then sat down beside her at the other end of the bench. He folded his hands on his knees, and they sat silent for a time, and then he asked in a dead voice, "You know I love you—still, don't you, Molly?"
She answered, "Yes, that's what makes it hard."
"And do you love me?" he cried with eagerness.
She sat for a minute without replying and then answered, "I am a woman now, Bob—a grown woman, and some way things are different."