Part 33 (1/2)
After a pause she made another attempt.
”Mr. Medland!”
”Yes?”
”You've been very good to me--yes, very good.”
He turned to her with a gesture of disclaimer. She thought he was going to speak, but he did not.
”Whatever happens, I shall always remember that with--with deep grat.i.tude.”
”What is going to happen?” he asked, with an uneasy smile.
”Oh, how can I?” she burst out. ”How can I say it? How can I ask you?”
As she spoke she stopped, and he followed her example. They stood facing one another now, as he replied gravely,
”Whatever you ask--let it be what it will--I will answer, truthfully.” A pause before the last word perhaps betrayed a momentary struggle.
”What right have I? Why should you?”
”The right my--my desire to have your regard gives you. How can I ask for that, unless I am ready to tell you all you can wish to know?”
”I have heard,” she began falteringly, ”I have been told by--by people who, I suppose, were right to tell me----”
In a moment he understood her. A slight twitch of his mouth betrayed his trouble, but he came to her rescue.
”I don't know how it reached you,” he said. ”Perhaps I think you might have been--you need not have known it. But there is only one thing you can have heard, that it would distress you to speak of.”
She said nothing, but fixed her eyes on his.
”I am right?” he asked. ”It is about--my wife?”
She bowed her head. He stood silent for a moment, and she cried,
”It was only gossip--a woman's gossip; I did wrong to listen to it.”
”Gossip,” he said, ”is often true. This is true,” and he set his lips.
The worst often finds or makes people calm. She had flushed at first, but the colour went again, and she said quietly,
”If you have time and don't mind, I should like to hear it all.”
She had forgotten what this request must mean to him, or perhaps she thought the time for pretence had gone by. If so, he understood, for he answered,
”It's your right.”
Her eyes sank to the ground, but she did not quarrel with his words. She stood motionless while he told his story. He spoke with wilful brevity and dryness.
”I was a young man when I met her. She was married, and I went to the house. Her husband----”