Part 37 (1/2)

”You!” She answered him in pa.s.sionate desperation. It was her last throw for happiness.

She counted the flying seconds before he spoke, with her thudding heartbeats, and they seemed to stop when he laughed.

”You can hardly expect me to believe that,” he said.

She found her voice with a great effort.

”I know ... but it's the truth--all the same.”

She was fighting for something greater than life--happiness! And though with each moment since she came into the room it seemed to be more surely eluding her, she went on, hardly knowing what she said:

”I know you don't believe me--but it's true.... I never cared for--for Mr. Digby ... but ... but I was jealous ... of Peg!” Her voice faltered over the little name, and it was with an effort that she forced herself to continue. ”You seemed to like her ... better than me ... and--and ...

I was jealous....” She spoke the words again pa.s.sionately, conscious of their unconvincing sound, their parrot-like repet.i.tion.

Forrester came towards her till but a step divided them.

”You expect me to believe that?” he asked hoa.r.s.ely. ”When I've been waiting all these weeks, all these months for you to give me one look ... one smallest hope ... when I've been a beggar at your feet, hoping against hope that some day you'd throw me a smile....” He swung round from her with a pa.s.sionate gesture of disbelief.

She had pleaded to him in vain, and she knew it. She had humbled herself unavailingly. The room swam giddily before her eyes as she looked at Forrester. Such a man for a woman to love, and yet she, blind as she had been, had not seen until too late, all that she was throwing away.

She made a little inarticulate sound of despair and Forrester turned.

He stepped past her and opened the door.