“How did you ever come to do it?” he asked roughly, out of the bitter impulse of his heart.
She knew that the harshness was not for her, as surely as she knew what he meant by his words.
“I did wrong. I know that now, but I didn’t know it then. Though even then I felt troubled about it. But my guardian said it was best, and I knew so little. Oh, so very, very little. Why was I not taught things, what every girl has a right to know—until life teaches me—too late?”
Nothing he could say would comfort her. For the inexorable facts forbade consolation. She had made shipwreck of her life before the frail raft of her destiny had well pushed forth from harbor. He would have given much to have been able to take the sadness out of her great childeyes, but he knew that not even by the greatness of his desire could he take up her burden. She must carry it alone or sink under it.
“You must go away from here back to your people. If not now, then as soon as the trial is over. Make him take you to your friends for a time.”
“I have no friends that can help me.” She said it in an even little voice of despair.
“You have many friends. You have made some here. Virginia is one.” He would not name himself as only a friend, though he had set his iron will to claim no more.
“Yes, Virginia is my friend. She is good to me. But she is going to marry you, and then you will both forget me.”
“I shall never forget you.” He cried it in a low, tense voice, his clenched hands thrust into the pockets of his sack coat.
Her wan smile thanked him. It was the most he would let himself say. Though her heart craved more, she knew she must make the most of this.