"I shall always think of you when I see them," she said, looking away from him. "And you, when you remember to-day, don't let it be a memory only of sadness; but of my gratitude--my wondering gratitude." She paused, and as he made no reply, added gently, "I never dreamed you cared for me."
"It came slowly--the knowledge that without you the world would be empty," said Geoffrey.
"Oh, no," he answered, raising his eyes to her; "you are here."
Tremulously, afraid of hurting him, yet the longing to find comfort for him--for herself--urging her, she asked, "But does loving me--knowing how deeply you have made me care for you--does that keep the pain from being too great?"
Geoffrey again had his half smile. "Ah, if I don't talk about it, you mustn't think it's not great. It would be less, too, if you were not so miserable."
"Do you mean that if I were happy--married to Maurice--you would be happier too?"
Geoffrey, looking away from her, did not speak for some moments. Her question hardly required an answer. It was of its further suggestions he was thinking.
"Do you think that Maurice would make you happy?" he asked.
"I wouldn't care. The word would mean such different things. Unhappiness with him would be happiness."
"You know; you must see." She leaned her face into her palms, not weeping, with a weariness too deep for tears, and again her tragic sincerity made her seem far from him.
"You must have courage," said Geoffrey, after a little while. He had taken out his pocket-book and laid the snowdrops neatly away within it. "You are both young. Maurice has talent."
"Ah; how can I have courage if he has none? See how that embitters it all, even though I know that it is the truest courage in him to set me free. How can I hope when he tells me not to? For months I have had courage; for months I have hoped. Day after day when I woke I said to myself, 'He will come to-day; he must come to-day!' How I waited--how I hoped. And then came the time when the letters stopped. I don't know how I lived. But now, in looking back, it all seems rapture; the time when I could wait--and could hope."
Her long sighing breaths shook Geoffrey more than her sobbing.
"But I want to suffer," said Felicia. "The time will come when I won't mind. Haven't you that fear--the worst of all--that even the suffering will go? One does outlive everything one cares about. After a time there is only a dim regret. Life is so shrunken, that one can hardly remember larger hopes."