folded; next moment she was very close to me, and fresh tears were in her eyes. But I stepped backward, for I had had enough.
“Can you not forgive me?”
“Oh, dear, yes.”
“Can’t you understand?”
“Perfectly,” said I.
“You know you said - “
“I have said so many things!”
“But this was that you - you loved me well enough to - give me up.”
And the silly ego in me - the endless and incorrigible I - imagined her pouting for a withdrawal of those brave words.
“I not only said it,” I declared, “but I meant every word of it.”
were no gradations - not even a tropical twilight. One minute I aw the sun upon the blind; the next - thank God! Oh, thank God! No light broke any longer through the blind; just a faint and narrow glimmer stole between it and the casement; and the light that had been bright golden was palest silver now.