"No. I don't suppose you gave me a thought. Morning, noon and night you
were everything to me. There was nothing else. I have worked for you,
lived for you--"
His back was towards her--the horrible thought that he was crying came to
her; his voice was rough and broken.
"If I had only guessed--" she said in hideous distress and embarrassment.
She had thought, as all girls do, of one day getting an offer of marriage;
that it could ever be such a miserable experience as this she had not
imagined. If it had only been a stranger, she thought foolishly; some one
outside her life, of whom she had seen little! But Mr. Gibbon--their
boarder! The sight of him in their home circle had become as familiar to
her as might have been the sight of her brother: she could not reconcile
herself to the thought that this man in the horribly unfamiliar guise was
he. "If I had only guessed--!"
"And if you had?" he asked, but hopelessly, without turning round.
"I could have told you the sooner. There wouldn't have been such
a--waste."
She slipped off the table, and stood beside it in a painful state of
indecision. She longed to get away from the sight of him, to escape; but
at the same time, being Deleah, she also longed to comfort.
Pages:
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194