As I am now, so I shall
always be, a wandering fellow without ties. It is not a pleasant prospect
for old age. But I have made up my mind to it and I shall never marry."
The girl's hands had dropped limp into her lap; her face was down so that
he could barely see the burning blush which overspread it.
"You don't mean that," she said in a voice that was queer and choked.
"Oh yes, I do, little girl," he answered, intending to smile when she
should look up.
When she did lift her eyes, his smile could not come. For her face was grey
and her lips bloodless and from her eyes looked despair. Howard glanced
away instantly. With rude hand he had suddenly toppled into the dust this
child's dream-castle of love and happiness which he had himself helped her
build. He felt like a criminal. But partly from a sense of duty, chiefly
from the cowardice of self-preservation, he made no effort to lighten her
suffering.
"I should only prolong it," he thought, "only make matters worse.
To-morrow--perhaps."
If she had been worldly wise, even if she had not been so completely
absorbed in her worship of him that her woman-instincts were dormant, she
would herself have found hope. But she had not a suspicion that these
strong words of apparent finality were spoken to give himself courage, to
keep him from obeying the impulse to respond to the appeal of her youth to
his, her aloneness to his, her passion to his.
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