The
snow will be deep, perhaps, but it is not far."
She went to the window, got his cap and gloves, and handed them to him.
He took them, dumbfounded and overcome.
"Say, I ain't done it right, mebbe, but I meant well, and I'd be good to
you and proud of you, and I'd love you better than anything I ever saw,"
he said shamefacedly, but eagerly and honestly too.
"Ah, you should have said those last words first," she answered.
"I say them now."
"They come too late; but they would have been too late in any case," she
added. "Still, I am glad you said them."
She opened the door for him.
"I made a mistake," he urged humbly. "I understand better now. I never
had any schoolin'."
"Oh, it isn't that," she answered gently. "Goodbye."
Suddenly he turned. "You're right--it couldn't ever be," he said.
"You're--you're great. And I owe you my life still."
He stepped out into the biting air.
For a moment Pauline stood motionless in the middle of the room, her gaze
fixed upon the door which had just closed; then, with a wild gesture of
misery and despair, she threw herself upon the couch in a passionate
outburst of weeping. Sobs shook her from head to foot, and her hands,
clenched above her head, twitched convulsively.
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