“Are you going to be able to say that, Barbs,” he said gently, “a year from now, after we’ve been out of sight and hearing of each other all that time?”

“Wilmot,” she said, “I’m not up to my old bad tricks.  I am ready to give you my word this time, and to keep faith.  Only I’d like everything to be done as soon as possible.  I’ve been a very foolish girl, and perplexed and tired, and I want to lean on you, if you’ll let me.  We’ll have a good life together, and I will keep my eyes in the boat.”

“A few days ago, Barbs,” he said, “you thought that you were seriously in love with another man.”

“I know,” she said, “but I wasn’t.”

“Are you in love with me now?” he asked wistfully.

“I know that you will always be good to me, and love me.  And that is what I know that I want.”

“Poor little Barbs,” he said.

“It seems to me rather,” she said, “that I am now rich with chances of happiness for us both.  I want to make my oldest and most deserving friend happy, and I trust him to make me happy.”

“It isn’t love, dear?”

“It’s so much affection and friendship that perhaps it’s better.”  She turned her face away a little.  “The best that marriage can end in is affectionate companionship; why not begin with that, and so be sure of it for always?”

“If I had ever dreamed,” said Wilmot unsteadily, “that you were going to say things like this to me, I’d have dreamed that I went wild with happiness, and drove you to the nearest clergyman.  But now that you have actually said what you have said, in real life, I find that I love you more than ever, and that it is not compatible with so much love to take you on a basis of friendship.  You feel that you have hurt me more than is possible for your conscience to bear, and you wish to make up for it.  Is that right?”

“That’s not all there is to it, Wilmot, by any means.  But for heaven’s sake believe that I’m being altogether unselfish:  but you know me too well to believe anything so ridiculous.”

“I know you well enough,” said Wilmot, “to worship the ground you walk on.  Not because my heart urges me, but my understanding.  And I know you would play the game, once you had given your word, and make me a splendid wife.  But what I have for you cannot be given to mere friendship and submission, I should feel that I had sinned against my love for you too greatly to be forgiven.  You are closer to me than you have ever been, my dear—­and yet so far away that I can only look upward as to a star, and despair of the distance.  If there has been anything fine in my life, it has been my love for you.  And behold, you, with every opposite intention, are tempting me to let that go rotten, too.  But, O my Barbs, if you could only love me!”

Barbara drew a long breath.  “I thought I was doing right.”

“You have done right.  It is for me to do right.”