Book I
16. Chapter XVI.
(continued)
"My dear child--was THAT it? If you only knew the
truth!"
She raised her head quickly. "Then there is a truth I
don't know?"
He kept his hand over hers. "I meant, the truth
about the old story you speak of."
"But that's what I want to know, Newland--what I
ought to know. I couldn't have my happiness made out
of a wrong--an unfairness--to somebody else. And I
want to believe that it would be the same with you.
What sort of a life could we build on such foundations?"
Her face had taken on a look of such tragic courage
that he felt like bowing himself down at her feet. "I've
wanted to say this for a long time," she went on. "I've
wanted to tell you that, when two people really love
each other, I understand that there may be situations
which make it right that they should--should go against
public opinion. And if you feel yourself in any way
pledged . . . pledged to the person we've spoken of . . .
and if there is any way . . . any way in which you can
fulfill your pledge . . . even by her getting a divorce
. . . Newland, don't give her up because of me!"
His surprise at discovering that her fears had
fastened upon an episode so remote and so completely of
the past as his love-affair with Mrs. Thorley Rushworth
gave way to wonder at the generosity of her view.
There was something superhuman in an attitude so
recklessly unorthodox, and if other problems had not
pressed on him he would have been lost in wonder at
the prodigy of the Wellands' daughter urging him to
marry his former mistress. But he was still dizzy with
the glimpse of the precipice they had skirted, and full
of a new awe at the mystery of young-girlhood.
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