He said: "It's one of those things a man is always expecting to do,
and is always astonished that he hasn't done. Am I unpardonable?"

"I did not mean it in that way."

He turned his dark, comely head and looked at her as they bent
together above the album.

"I know you didn't. My answer was not frank. The reason I never
came to you before was that--I did not know I would be welcomed."

Their voices dropped. Ailsa standing by the window, watching the
orioles in the maple, could no longer distinguish what they were
saying.

He said: "You were bridesmaid to my mother. You are the Celia
Paige of her letters."

"She is always Connie Berkley to me. I loved no woman better. I
love her still."

"I found that out yesterday. That is why I dared come. I found,
among the English letters, one from you to her, written--_after_."

"I wrote her again and again. She never replied. Thank God, she
knew I loved her to the last."

He rested on the tabletop and stood leaning over and looking down.