He had seized her by the arm to make sure that she was there in verity of flesh and blood, and not by some trick of his own senses, as a cold chill running over him had made him afraid. At the touch their passion ignored all that they had made each other suffer; her head was on his breast, his embrace was round her; it was a moment of delirious bliss that intervened between the sorrows that had been and the reasons that must come.
“What—what are you doing here, Marcia?” he asked at last.
They sank on the benching that ran round the wall; he held her hands fast in one of his, and kept his other arm about her as they sat side by side.
“I don't know—I—” She seemed to rouse herself by an effort from her rapture. “I was going to see Nettie Spaulding. And I saw you driving past our house; and I thought you were coming here; and I couldn't bear—I couldn't bear to let you go away without telling you that I was wrong; and asking—asking you to forgive me. I thought you would do it,—I thought you would know that I had behaved that way because I—I—cared so much for you. I thought—I was afraid you had gone on the other train—” She trembled and sank back in his embrace, from which she had lifted herself a little.
“How did you get here?” asked Bartley, as if willing to give himself all the proofs he could of the every-day reality of her presence.
“Andy Morrison brought me. Father sent him from the hotel. I didn't care what you would say to me, I wanted to tell you that I was wrong, and not let you go away feeling that—that—you were all to blame. I thought when I had done that you might drive me away,—or laugh at me, or anything you pleased, if only you would let me take back—”
“Yes,” he answered dreamily. All that wicked hardness was breaking up within him; he felt it melting drop by drop in his heart. This poor love-tossed soul, this frantic, unguided, reckless girl, was an angel of mercy to him, and in her folly and error a messenger of heavenly peace and hope. “I am a bad fellow, Marcia,” he faltered. “You ought to know that. You did right to give me up. I made love to Hannah Morrison; I never promised to marry her, but I made her think that I was fond of her.”
“I don't care for that,” replied the girl. “I told you when we were first engaged that I would never think of anything that had gone before that; and then when I would not listen to a word from you, that day, I broke my promise.”
“When I struck Henry Bird because he was jealous of me, I was as guilty as if I had killed him.”
“If you had killed him, I was bound to you by my word. Your striking him was part of the same thing,—part of what I had promised I never would care for.” A gush of tears came into his eyes, and she saw them. “Oh, poor Bartley! Poor Bartley!”