Instantly there had been
a barrier erected between us which she alone could lower. Those were
long minutes I sat there, speechless, gazing straight ahead, my brain
inert, my hand hard on the tiller. Suddenly, with a swift thrill which
sent my blood leaping, I felt the soft touch of her fingers.
"Are you afraid to speak to me?" she asked, pleadingly. "Surely I have
said nothing to anger you."
"No, it is not that," I returned in confusion, not knowing how to
express the cause of my hesitancy. "I am sorry, and--and I sympathize
with you, but I hardly know how to explain."
She was looking at me through the darkness; I was able to distinguish
the white outline of her uplifted face.
"I am sorry--yes," very slowly, "but perhaps not as you suppose. It is
hard to think of him as dead--killed so suddenly, without opportunity
to think, or make any preparation. He--he was my husband under the
law. That was all; he was no more. I do not believe I ever loved
him--my marriage was but the adventure of a romantic girl; but if I
once did, his subsequent abuse of me, his life of dissipation,
obliterated long since every recollection of that love. He is to me
scarcely more than a name, an unhappy memory. I told you that frankly
when I believed him still alive.
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