REQUIESCAT
"I think you could understand me if you wished to. Forgive me the harm I've done you. Don't, don't hate me."
How weak she was now, how she had come down! "What harm have you done to me?" he asked, unmoved.
"You should know better than I do. I suppose I must have hurt you, and through you, Howard. An—an intrusion isn't a happy thing. You didn't give me a chance to make it happy. You came at first, but there was always a cloud. I didn't want to interfere, I tried to play the game. Now that we've both lost him, couldn't you forgive?"
"I'm sorry I should have given you the impression that I resented anything—that there was anything to resent. I didn't know that you were thinking that. Perhaps you rather ran away with a preconceived idea that because you married Howard I was bound to be unfriendly to you. If you did, you never showed it. I never imagined that I had disappointed you by anything I did or didn't do."
"It was not what you didn't do, it was what you weren't that made me feel I was a
73
