“Never to live, or stay any while,” he went on. “I might go some time for a little visit.... But never to live.”
“Oh—Glenn!” she gasped, and her hands fluttered out to him. The shock was driving home. No amaze, no incredulity succeeded her reception of the fact. It was a slow stab. Carley felt the cold blanch of her skin. “Then—this is it—the something I felt strange between us?”
“Yes, I knew—and you never asked me,” he replied.
“That was it? All the time you knew,” she whispered, huskily. “You knew. ... I’d never—marry you—never live out here?”
“Yes, Carley, I knew you’d never be woman enough—American enough—to help me reconstruct my broken life out here in the West,” he replied, with a sad and bitter smile.
That flayed her. An insupportable shame and wounded vanity and clamoring love contended for dominance of her emotions. Love beat down all else.
“Dearest—I beg of you—don’t break my heart,” she implored.
“I love you, Carley,” he answered, steadily, with piercing eyes on hers.
“Then come back—home—home with me.”
“No. If you love me you will be my wife.”