Lifting her sad, tear-stained face, she looked earnestly into his eyes.
“What can you think of me, Jack?” she asked.
“Think of you?” he repeated. “Why, the same as I have always done—that you are an upright, honest woman. Neither blame nor dishonour attaches to you. When he left you so cruelly, you bore your sorrow bravely, thinking, no doubt, that some day he might return and make you happy. Was not that so?”
She nodded an affirmative. Her gaze was fixed thoughtfully on the canvas which stood on an easel behind him; her slim, white hands were crossed in front of her.
“Since we parted,” she said, in a strained, broken voice, as if speaking to herself, “he has been uppermost in my thoughts. Often when I have been alone, indulging in dreamy musings, I have looked up and seemed to see him standing contemplating me. Then all the regret has fled from my heart, and paradise has stolen in. He has spoken to me, smiled at me, as he did in those pleasant days when first we knew each other. Yet next moment the vision would fade before my eyes, and I have found myself deceived by a mere chimera, tricked by an idle fancy. But now he is dead: gone from me never to return—never.”
And she again gave way to tears, sobbing bitterly.
“Come, come, Dolly,” said the artist, again passing his hand lightly over her hair, endeavouring to soothe her; “don’t be downhearted. Yours is a cruel and heavy sorrow, I know; but try to bear up against it, try to think that perhaps, as you suggested, he is not dead. Even if you have lost your lover, you have in me a true and trusted friend.”
“Yes, I know,” she sobbed brokenly. “You are my only friend. It is extremely kind of you to talk like this; yet you cannot know the extent of my love for him.”
“I quite realise how much you cared for him,” he said slowly, in a pained voice. “If he had married you, his life would have been peaceful and happy. Fate, however, decreed different, and, that being the case, you must try to forget him.”
“Forget him! Never!” she cried. Then recovering herself, she added: “Excuse what I say; I hardly know what I’ve been telling you.”