" She clasped her hands together in a sorrowful
gesture. "Yes, we must talk plain. Bibbs heard that I'd tried to
make your oldest son care for me because I was poor, and so Bibbs came
and asked me to marry him--because he was sorry for me. And I CAN'T
see him any more," she cried in distress. "I CAN'T!"
Sheridan cleared his throat uncomfortably. "You mean because he
thought that about you?"
"No, no! What he thought was TRUE!"
"Well--you mean he was so much in--you mean he thought so much of
you--" The words were inconceivably awkward upon Sheridan's tongue;
he seemed to be in doubt even about pronouncing them, but after a
ghastly pause he bravely repeated them. "You mean he thought so much
of you that you just couldn't stand him around?"
"NO! He was sorry for me. He cared for me; he was fond of me; and
he'd respected me--too much! In the finest way he loved me, if you
like, and he'd have done anything on earth for me, as I would for him,
and as he knew I would. It was beautiful, Mr. Sheridan," she said.
"But the cheap, bad things one has done seem always to come back--they
wait, and pull you down when you're happiest. Bibbs found me out, you
see; and he wasn't 'in love' with me at all.
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