“Yes, I do believe you. Oh, I haven't said at all what I wanted to say! There was a great deal that I ought to say. I can't seem to recollect it.”
He smiled to see her grieving at this recreance of her memory to her conscience. “Well, you shall have a whole lifetime to recall it in.”
“No, I must try to speak now. And you must tell me the truth now,—no matter what it costs either of us.” She laid her hands upon his extended arms, and grasped them intensely. “There's something else. I want to ask you what you thought when you found me alone on that ship with all of you.” If she had stopped at this point, Staniford's cause might have been lost, but she went on: “I want to know whether you were ever ashamed of me, or despised me for it; whether you ever felt that because I was helpless and friendless there, you had the right to think less of me than if you had first met me here in this house.”
It was still a terrible question, but it offered a loop-hole of escape, which Staniford was swift to seize. Let those who will justify the answer with which he smiled into her solemn eyes: “I will leave you to say.” A generous uncandor like this goes as far with a magnanimous and serious-hearted woman as perhaps anything else.
“Oh, I knew it, I knew it!” cried Lydia. And then, as he caught her to him at last, “Oh—oh—are you sure it's right?”
“I have no doubt of it,” answered Staniford. Nor had he any question of the strategy through which he had triumphed in this crucial test. He may have thought that there were always explanations that had to be made afterwards, or he may have believed that he had expiated in what he had done and suffered for her any slight which he had felt; possibly, he considered that she had asked more than she had a right to do. It is certain that he said with every appearance of sincerity, “It began the moment I saw you on the wharf, there, and when I came to know my mind I kept it from you only till I could tell you here. But now I wish I hadn't! Life is too short for such a week as this.”
“No,” said Lydia, “you acted for the best, and you are—good.”
“I'll keep that praise till I've earned it,” answered Staniford.