. I did.... And I don't do things by halves."

She stopped.

"You knew?"--she asked, looking up, quite steadily. I nodded.

"Since when?"

"Those last days.... It hasn't seemed to matter really. I was a little
surprised."

She looked at me quietly. "Cothope knew," she said. "By instinct. I
could feel it."

"I suppose," I began, "once, this would have mattered immensely. Now--"

"Nothing matters," she said, completing me. "I felt I had to tell you. I
wanted you to understand why I didn't marry you--with both hands. I have
loved you"--she paused--"have loved you ever since the day I kissed you
in the bracken. Only--I forgot."

And suddenly she dropped her face upon her hands, and sobbed
passionately--

"I forgot--I forgot," she cried, and became still....

I dabbled my paddle in the water. "Look here!" I said; "forget again!
Here am I--a ruined man. Marry me."

She shook her head without looking up.

We were still for a long time. "Marry me!" I whispered.

She looked up, twined back a whisp of hair, and answered
dispassionately--

"I wish I could. Anyhow, we have had this time. It has been a fine
time--has it been--for you also? I haven't nudged you all I had to give.
It's a poor gift--except for what it means and might have been. But we
are near the end of it now."

"Why?" I asked. "Marry me! Why should we two--"

"You think," she said, "I could take courage and come to you and be your
everyday wife--while you work and are poor?"

"Why not?" said I.

She looked at me gravely, with extended finger. "Do you really think
that--of me? Haven't you seen me--all?"

I hesitated.

"Never once have I really meant marrying you," she insisted. "Never
once. I fell in love with you from the first. But when you seemed a
successful man, I told myself I wouldn't. I was love-sick for you,
and you were so stupid, I came near it then. But I knew I wasn't good
enough. What could I have been to you? A woman with bad habits and bad
associations, a woman smirched. And what could I do for you or be to
you? If I wasn't good enough to be a rich man's wife, I'm certainly not
good enough to be a poor one's. Forgive me for talking sense to you now,
but I wanted to tell you this somehow."

She stopped at my gesture. I sat up, and the canoe rocked with my
movement.

"I don't care," I said. "I want to marry you and make you my wife!"

"No," she said, "don't spoil things. That is impossible!"

"Impossible!"

"Think! I c