"As soon as we had time for such trifles." He would not enter into her
saddened mood.
"But one thing I want to know: did you _really_ intend it, or was it
only my cruel affliction that brought you back to me--motives of sheer
humanity--because no one else would help me, because they thought I was
the prey of frenzied fancies to believe that Archie still lived?"
Julian was silent for a moment, obviously hesitating. Then he reluctantly
admitted, "No, I should never have come back."
She threw herself back in the chair with a little pathetic sigh. He
looked at her with a smile at once tender and whimsical. She too smiled
faintly, then took up the theme anew.
"But, Julian," she persisted, "it is very painful to reflect that you had
deliberately shut me out of your heart forever; that when you saw me
again you had no impulse to renew the past. Had you none, really?"
The temptation was strong to give her the reassurance she craved. She had
suffered so bitterly that a pang of merely sentimental woe seemed a
gratuitous cruelty.
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