"

"Because then you wouldn't have been there. I knew you were trying to
keep it all together. But it was bound to go. It couldn't have lasted.
_She'd_ have gone anyhow. You don't worry about that now, do you?"

"Sometimes I can't help thinking of it."

"Don't think of it."

"I won't so long as you know what I did it for."

He meditated.

"I know what you did it for in the beginning. But--Winks--you were there
_afterward_."

"Afterward--?"

"After Virelet went you were doing things."

"Well--and didn't you want me?"

"Of course I wanted you. Did you never wonder why I let you do things?
Why I can bear to take it from you? Don't you know I couldn't let any
other woman do what you do for me?"

"I'm glad if you feel like that about it."

"I don't believe you've any idea how I feel about it. I don't believe
you understand it yet." His voice thickened.

"I couldn't have let you, Winny, if I hadn't cared for you. I should
have been a low animal, a mean swine to let you if I hadn't cared. I'm
not talking as if my caring paid you back in any way. I couldn't pay you
back if I worked for you for the rest of my life. But that's what I'm
going to do if I can get the chance."

She could feel him trembling beside her and she was afraid.

"Would you let me?" he said. "Would you have me, Winny? Do you care for
me enough to have me?"

"You know I've always cared for you."

"Would you marry me if I was free?"

"Don't talk about it, dear. You mustn't."

"And why mustn't I?"

"It's no good. You're not free. You married Vi, dear, and whatever she's
done you can't un-marry her."

"Can't I? That's precisely what I can do; and it's what I'm going to
do."

"You're not. You couldn't."

It seemed to him that she shrank from him in horror.

"You don't understand. You're talking as if she and I cared for each
other. That's at an end. It's done for. She's asked me to divorce her."

"Asked you? When?"

"More than two years ago, and I promised. She wants to marry Mercier,
and she'd better. I'd have been free two years ago if I'd had the money.
But I've got it now. I've been saving for it. I've been doing nothing
else, thinking of nothing else from morning till night for more than two
years, because I meant to ask you to marry me."

"All that time?"

"All that time."

"But Ranny, you know you _needn't_. I'm quite happy."

"Are you?"

"Yes. You mustn't think I'm not and that you've got to make anything up
to m