"I know that, Dennie. You always loved me true. Oh, it was wrong for me to come away from you so!"
Adela leaned her head upon him, and began to sob slightly. This proceeding was to totally unlooked for, that Dennie was amazed.
"Thar, thar," he said, "ye'd oughtn't for to cry when I come back to ye. No; ye had the right on't, Deely. I warn't fit, then, and I wouldn't ha' been a fip better ef ye hadn't ha' left me be. It ar' all right, I tell ye. But fust, when I saw ye just now, thinks I, ye've changed so, and ye look so sort o' ironed up all careful, ye won't care nothin' for a old rough boy like Dennie no more. But if ye're goin' to cry, Deely, why, I want for to stop ye; and I do think it war all right, your leavin' me."
"Oh no, no," she reaffirmed, still weeping. "I did you a great wrong, Dennie!"
Dennie's face became apprehensive for a moment; but that look quickly dissolved, and he permitted himself a subdued laugh. "It are enough to make a man laugh," he said, in excuse, "to think o' my forgivin' ye; but if ye feel ye done wrong, why, I'll say I forgive ye, Deely. I do forgive ye, right free."
She had made the only confession she could. Indeed, what was there to reveal, except that in her long companionship with Sylv she had learned to love him, before she comprehended what was happening, and that she had honestly, at a fearful cost, stifled that love so far as might be, in order to remain true to the man she had promised to wed? But to tell this would in itself be to dishonor her vow.
She looked up to Dennie with streaming eyes, and her hand sought his. "Thank you, thank you!" she murmured. "I have suffered a great deal here, Dennie--away from you. I know you have suffered too. But you are generous and kind; and now I hope we can forget all the pain."
Dennie, in listening to her, was strongly impressed with the feeling that he was hearing something read from a book, so sharp was the contrast between her utterance and his. But the contents of the supposititious book were very soothing and acceptable. He turned quickly to her, and for the first time since his arrival they embraced each other with thorough self-forgetfulness.
"But, Deely," he said, "I ain't like ye ar'. I ain't got l'arnin' the way ye have now. Don't ye reckon that ar'll disapp'int ye?"