Page:A Girl of the Limberlost.djvu/459

 Then Edith Carr stretched out her arms.

"Phil, I am the girl you love!" she cried. "All your life you have loved me. Surely it cannot be all gone in a few weeks of misunderstanding. I was jealous of her! I did not want you to leave me an instant that night for any other girl living. That was the moth I was representing. Every one knew it! I wanted you to bring it to me. When you did not, I knew instantly it had been for her that you worked last summer, she who suggested my dress, she who had power to take you from me, when I wanted you most. The thought drove me mad, and I said and did those insane things. Phil, I beg your pardon! I ask your forgiveness. Yesterday she said that you had told her of me at once. She vowed both of you had been true to me—and, Phil, I couldn't look into her eyes and not see that it was the truth. Oh, Phil, if you understood how I have suffered you would forgive me. Phil, I never knew how much I cared for you! I will do anything—anything!" "Then tell me what you said to Elnora yesterday that drove her, alone and friendless, into the night, heaven knows where!" "You have no thought for any one save her?" "Yes," said Ammon. "I have. Because I once loved you, and believed in you, my heart ached for you. I will gladly forgive anything you ask. I will do anything you want, save resume our old relations. That is impossible. It is hopeless and useless to ask it." "You truly mean that!"