“We have passed through much together, Miss Thayer,” he began. “I wonder if we realize how much.”
“It has certainly been an unusual experience,” she admitted. “I expressed this to you at the library—do you remember? As I said then, it could hardly occur again.”
“I appreciate that now,” Armstrong replied, in a low voice; “at that time I do not think I did.”
“There was much which you could not appreciate then,” continued Inez; “and as I look back upon it there is much which I cannot explain to myself. In fact, there is a great deal that I blame myself for.”
“The blame belongs to me, Miss Thayer,” Armstrong asserted, firmly.
“For being away from Helen so much?”
“Yes; and for many other acts of selfishness and neglect. I am to blame for all that you feel against yourself.”
“Against myself?” Inez repeated.
Armstrong paused long before he continued. “You have passed through this spell with me,” he said, at length. “You, better than any one else, know its power, and can understand the cause of my attitude toward you and Helen, which was as inexplicable as it was unpardonable. And because you understand this I believe that I shall find you the more ready to forgive.”
“There is nothing for which you stand in need of my forgiveness,” Inez said, in a low tone. “On the contrary, there is much for which I have to thank you. It was a new world to which you introduced me—one which I should not otherwise have known; and having known it, nothing can ever take it from me.”