"I know," he said, and shut his lips. There was another silence
while she waited for him to speak. She felt that she was at his
mercy, that whether right or wrong, as he decided so it would be.
At length he said. "I thought it wasn't fair to him, and it
seemed so hopeless after I came here. I had nothing--and a man
feels that--so I kept away." He spoke awkwardly with something
of the reserve that was habitual to him.
"If you had only come!" she moaned.
"I did--once," he muttered.
"You didn't understand; why did you believe anything I said to
you? It was only that I cared--that in my heart I knew I cared
--I've cared about you ever since that trip down the river, and now
I am going to be married to-morrow--to-morrow, Bruce--do you
realize I have given my promise? I am to meet him at the Spring
Bank church at ten o'clock--and it's tomorrow!" she cried, in a
laboring choked voice. For answer he drew her closer. "Bruce,
what can I do?--tell me what I can do."
Carrington made an involuntary gesture of protest.
"I can't tell you that, dear--for I don't know." His voice was
steady, but it came from lips that quivered. He knew that he
might have urged the supreme claim of his love and in her present
desperate mood she would have listened, but the memory of Norton
would have been between them always a shame and reproach; as
surely as he stood there with his arms about her, as surely as
she clung to him so warm and near, he would have lived to see the
shadow of that shame in her eyes.
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