Page:Dorothy Canfield - Rough-hewn.djvu/312

 I'm afraid you won't understand. I don't know how to tell you, I don't know how to tell you! You see I never knew my mother and I never liked to talk intimately with other girls about .… about … but Margaret is so fine and" She cried out what she had to say in one burst, in a loud voice of pain, "Oh, Neale, when I saw Margaret with her lover I knew, I knew, I'd never loved you at all. I knew I'd hate you if we were married."

She turned away and leaned against the wall, sobbing, her face hidden in the crook of her arm. "What's the matter with me!" she cried desperately, brokenly. "Why don't I? Am I different from other women? I can't bear to hurt you so! I want to love you! What can I do with myself if I don't?"

The two stood there, the broken pieces of their life lying in a heap between them.

Over the heap, Neale took one long step and put his arms around Martha, so tenderly, so quietly, that she did not start or shrink away. She stopped sobbing, she stood still in his arms, breathlessly still as though she were listening intently, as though she were taking in some knowledge from a source not articulate.

She turned her face to his, and said abruptly, "Neale, it's just come to me.… I hadn't thought of that … perhaps you don't really love me either, not in that way … perhaps you never did. Perhaps I've just found all of it out in time."

Neale was startled, frightened, unutterably desolate but he made no pretense of being taken by surprise. "I can't bear to give you up, Martha," he said looking down at her. "Perhaps what we have is all we could ever have. We may lose this and have nothing. Perhaps there really is nothing else. What we have is … is … very good to have." His face contracted in a pain that really did surprise him by its keenness. He was horrified at the idea of losing Martha altogether.

Martha gazed steadily into his face as if trying to understand what he said, their old habit of sharing things, of talking things over, strong on her. He noted how pale and drawn her face was, with dark rings under her eyes. She had been suffering, she too had had broken nights. And as he looked