Part 10 (1/2)

”You went away from Maine without my knowing--without even coming to say good-bye. Was that fair, was that the thing for a man like you to do?”

How he wished she had not brought up these burning memories!

”I was broke, and I--” he managed to explain.

Lucia knew what he must be feeling now. She got up and went over to his side; she did not dare place her hand in his. Never must there be again that electric current between them. ”But you're all right now, aren't you, Gil?”

He seemed abstracted, suddenly lost in another world. ”Huh?” he uttered.

Then, as if coming to himself, ”Oh, my, yes! I'm doing splendidly now, Lucia!”

”I'm so glad, Gil. But you haven't answered my question yet.”

”About my not coming to say good-bye?”

She nodded.

”It was pride, I suppose,” he went on.

”Very foolish pride. And life is so short. You hurt me a great deal.”

”I'm sorry. What more can one say? If I--”

”I thought I had done something to offend you,” she said, standing very still, and looking far beyond him now, as though viewing their whole unhappy past. ”And it's worried me even until this very day. I didn't do anything to offend you, did I, Gil?”

”You? You, Lucia?” he cried. ”You couldn't do anything to offend me. Surely you must know that.” He said it as a man says such things to the one woman he loves.

”It was only pride?” she was anxious to know again. ”Because you were poor!

Gil! Did you think so little of me as that?” There was a half-sob in her voice.

”I hoped to pick a fortune off a tree somewhere, and come back and surprise you with it. I was going to buy an automobile--one of those low ones as long as a Pullman car--and fill it with roses, and come das.h.i.+ng up to your front door and take you for a ride through the hills. It was to be autumn.

I had even that fixed,” he laughed. ”Oh, I had everything thought out! And you were going to be so proud of me!... But I couldn't find a fortune-tree anywhere....” He looked away, embarra.s.sed. He hadn't meant to tell her this.

”Gil!” she cried.

”I guess they don't grow any more. At least, not in this part of the country.” He rose, a bit wearily, and walked over to the mantel-piece.

”What did you do, Gil?” she asked, her eyes following him.

”Well, I was a time-keeper on a railroad and weigh-boss in a coal mine.

After that I punched cows until I got uncle to come here. Then the war started, and--that's all.”

Then she asked what a woman always asks.

”Why didn't you ever write to me, Gil?”

”I was waiting for some good news to tell you. I felt you would consider me a failure--a rank failure. I couldn't have stood that. Women don't know how proud men are about that.”

”Maybe we don't--and maybe we do, Gil.” She went closer to him. ”Why don't you marry?” she dared to inquire.