rightful cheek,
but I've cared for you exactly twenty-five years. You never had a notion
of it, I know, and of course I never said anything, for to think of your
marrying a penniless, dreamy sort of idiot was absurd--you who might
have married anybody! I couldn't stay near you loving you as I did, so I
went right out of your life. I don't suppose you ever noticed I had
gone, you had always so many round you waiting for a smile.... I used to
read the lists of engagements in the _Times_, dreading to see your name.
No, that's not the right word, because I loved you well enough to wish
happiness for you whoever brought it. I sometimes heard of you from one
and another, and I never forgot--never for a day. Then my uncle died and
my cousin was killed, and I came back to Priorsford and settled down at
Laverlaw, and was content and quite fairly happy. The War came, and of
course I offered my services. I wasn't much use but, thank goodness, I
got out to France, and got some fighting--a second-lieutenant at forty!
It was the first time I had ever felt myself of some real use.... Then
that finished and I was back at Laverlaw among my sheep--and you came to
Priorsford The moment I saw you I knew that my love for you was as
strong and young as it was twenty years ago...."

Pamela sat fingering a fan she had taken up to protect her face from the
blaze and looking into the fire.

"Pamela. Have you nothing to say to me?"

"Twenty-five years is a long time," Pamela said slowly. "I was fifteen
then and you were twenty. Twenty years ago I was twenty and you were
twenty-five--why didn't you speak then, Lewis? You went away and I
thought you didn't care. Does a man never think how awful it is for a
woman who has to wait without speaking? You thought you were noble to go
away.... I suppose it must have been for some wise reason that the good
God made men blind, but it's hard on the women. You might at least have
given me the chance to say No."

"I was a coward. But it was unbelievable that you could care. You never
showed me by word or look."

"Was it likely? I was proud and you were blind, so we missed the best.
We lost our youth and I very nearly lost my soul. After you left,
nothing seemed to matter but enjoying myself as best I could. I hated
the thought of growing old, and I looked at the painted, restless faces
round me and wondered if they were afraid too. Then I thought I would
marry and have more of a reason for living. A man o