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"You are trying to make it easier for me. But I know, Jud."
"I'm telling you the truth," he said, patiently. "There's one point I
didn't think necessary to tell your brother. For a good while I didn't
remember anything about it. If it hadn't been for that-well, I don't
know. Anyhow, don't look at me as though I willfully saved you. I
didn't."
She sat still, pondering that, and twisting a ring on her finger.
"What do you mean to do?" she asked, after a pause.
"I don't know. I'll find something."
"You won't go back to your work?"
"I don't see how I can. I'm in hiding, in a sort of casual fashion."
To his intense discomfiture she began to cry again. She couldn't go
through with it. She would go back to Norada and tell the whole thing.
She had let Fred influence her, but she saw now she couldn't do it. But
for the first time he felt that in this one thing she was not sincere.
Her grief and abasement had been real enough, but now he felt she was
acting.
"Suppose we don't go into that now," he said gently. "You've had about
all you can stand." He got up awkwardly. "I suppose you are playing
to-night?"
She nodded, looking up at him dumbly.
"Better lie down, then, and--forget me." He smiled down at her.
"I've never forgotten you, Jud. And now, seeing you again--I--"
Her face worked. She continued to look up at him, piteously. The
appalling truth came to him then, and that part of him which had
remained detached and aloof, watching, almost smiled at the irony. She
cared for him. Out of her memories she had built up something to care
for, something no more himself than she was the woman of his dreams; but
with this difference, that she was clinging, woman-fashion, to the thing
she had built, and he had watched it crumble before his eyes.
"Will you promise to go and rest?"
"Yes. If you say so."
She was acquiescent and humble. Her eyes were soft, faithful, childlike.
"I've suffered so, Jud."
"I know."
"You don't hate me, do you?"
"Why should I? Just remember this: while you were carrying this burden,
I was happier than I'd ever been. I'll tell you about it some time."
She got up, and he perceived that she expected him again to take her in
his arms. He felt ridiculous and resentful, and rather as though he was
expected to kiss the hand that had beaten him, but when she came close
to him he put an arm around her shoulders.