"
"You could not have helped it--if you had cared." She spoke very low.
Gilbert looked at her long, and the lines deepened in his face, for he
was hurt.
"Do you really believe that I do not love you?" he asked, but his voice
was cold because he tried to control it, and succeeded too well.
"You have never told me so," Beatrix answered. "You have done little to
make me think so, since we were children together. You have never tried
to see me when it would have cost you anything. You are not glad to see
me now."
Her voice could be cold, too; but there was a tremor in some of the
syllables. He was utterly surprised and taken unawares, and he slowly
repeated the substance of what she said.
"I never told you so? Never made you think so? Oh, Beatrix!"
He remembered the sleepless nights he had passed, accusing himself of
letting even one thought of the Queen come between him and the girl who
was denying his love--the restless, melancholy hours of self-
accusation, the cruel self-torment--how could she know?
She was in earnest, now, though she had begun half playfully; for if
the man's heart had not changed, he had gone away from her in his
active life, and in the habit of hiding all real feeling which comes
from living long alone or with strangers. It was true that outwardly he
had hardly seemed glad to see her, and all the ring of happiness had
died away out of her voice before they had exchanged many words. He
felt her mood, and it grew clear to him that he had made some great
mistake which it would be very hard to set right.
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