Matt raised his hat and silently bowed; but as they turned away, he said to Suzette, "What a happy face! What a lovely face! What a good face!"
"She is a very good woman," said the girl. "She has been very kind to us. But so has everybody. I couldn't have believed it." In fact, it was only the kindness of their neighbors that had come near the defaulter's daughters; the harshness and the hate had kept away.
"Why shouldn't they be kind?" Matt demanded, with his heart instantly in his throat. "I can't imagine—at such a time—Don't you know that I love you?" he entreated, as if that exactly followed; there was, perhaps, a subtle spiritual sequence, transcending all order of logic in the expression of his passion.
She looked at him over her shoulder as he walked by her side, and said, with neither surprise nor joy, "How can you say such a thing to me?"
"Because it is true! Because I can't help it! Because I wish to be everything to you, and I have to begin by saying that. But don't answer me now; you need never answer me. I only wish you to use me as you would use some one who loved you beyond anything on earth,—as freely as that, and yet not be bound or hampered by me in the least. Can you do that? I mean, can you feel, 'This is my best friend, the truest friend that any one can have, and I will let him do anything and everything he wishes for me.' Can you do that,—say that?"
"But how could I do that? I don't understand you!" she said, faintly.
"Don't you? I am so glad you don't drive me from you—"
"I? You!"
"I was afraid—But now we can speak reasonably about it; I don't see why people shouldn't. I know it's shocking to speak to you of such a thing at such a time. It's dreadful; and yet I can't feel wrong to have done it! No! If it's as sacred as it seems to me when I think of it, then it couldn't be wrong in the presence of death itself. I do love you; and I want you some day for my wife. Yes! But don't answer that now! If you never answer me, or if you deny me at last, still I want you to let me be your true lover, while I can, and to do everything that your accepted lover could, whether you ever look at me again or not. Couldn't you do that?"
"You know I couldn't," she answered, simply.