Last winter we knew how it was with us--didn't we? Won't you
tell me that you knew? It is my dearest belief that you did."
"Yes, I knew," Charlotte answered, very low.
"To me it was the most beautiful thing I had ever dreamed of, that two
people could so understand and belong to each other before a word was
said. When the time came to speak, and--the thing had happened that made
it impossible, I can never tell you what it meant to me. When I found
you there in the North it seemed as if the last ounce had been added to
the burden I was bearing. I couldn't ask for your friendship; I couldn't
have taken it if you had given it to me. I had to have all or nothing.
Can you understand that?"
She nodded. She put up one hand and lifted the thin black veil she was
wearing, and turned her face upward to the stars. They were very bright,
that February night, down in South Carolina.
"But now," he went on, after a moment, "it is all plain before us.
Charlotte, am I a strangely presumptuous lover to take so much for
granted? I don't even ask if you have changed. Knowing you, that doesn't
seem possible to me. I have never wooed you, I have simply--recognized
you! You belonged to me. I was sure that you so recognized me. It has
been as I dreamed it would be, when I was a boy, dreaming my first dreams
about such things.
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