"I--I won't leave you--I'll stay near you," he stammered.
But as they trudged along together through the dark his chagrin
returned in full force. Mrs. Cortlandt maintained a distressing
silence, and he could not see her face. Presently he began to
plead brokenly for forgiveness, stumbling in the effort not to
offend her further and feeling that he was making matters worse
with every word he uttered. For a long time she made no reply, but
at last she said:
"Do you think I ought ever to see you again after this?"
"I suppose not," said Kirk, miserably.
"I won't believe," she went on, "that you could have taken me for
the kind of woman who--"
"No, no!" he cried, in an anguish of self-reproach. "I was a fool--"
"No," she said, "I don't--I couldn't bear to think that. Perhaps I
was partly to blame--but I didn't think--I ought to have known
that no man can really be trusted. But I thought our friendship
was so beautiful, and now you've spoiled it."
"Don't say that!" exclaimed Kirk. "Say you'll forgive me some
time."
But instead of answering him directly she proceeded in the same
strain, probing his wounded self-respect to the quick, making his
offence seem blacker every moment.
Although he assured her over and over that he had simply followed
the irresponsible, unaccountable impulse of a moment--that he had
regarded her only as the best of friends, and respected her more
than he could say, she showed him no mercy.
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