Again the mirage sense of compulsion, of peace in yielding to it, of letting this ghost-like consciousness shut out the long past and the short future, crept over her. She sank back again beside him.
"But how can I explain? Where shall I begin?"
"Listen to me now, dear Allida--we can use Christian names, I think, in a case of last dying confession like this. I am not going to prevent you, or put any constraint upon you; but I want you to explain as clearly and fully as you can, so that, in trying to make me see, you may see yourself, clearly and fully, what you are doing, where you are. Probably you are in a condition of absolutely irrational despair. Let us look at it together. I may be able to show you something else. Begin with him. Who is he?"
Allida had leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. She dropped her face into her hands as she answered:
"He is--a charming fellow," said Haldicott.
"I met him over a year ago," said Allida. "I am very miserable at home. I have grown up alone. My mother and I have never been at all sympathetic. I hardly saw her when I was growing up. She only wanted to marry me off as soon as possible, and--she hasn't found it easy to marry me off. I haven't money--or looks in particular--oh, but I can't go into all that! You know mamma. I have hated my life with her."
"Not that there is any harm in mamma," Allida amended, with a weary exactitude; "everybody understands that, too. Only she is so utterly silly, so utterly selfish. This all sounds horrible."
"I met him. I had never seen any one so dear, so sympathetic. I seemed to breathe with happiness when he was there. It was like morning sunlight after a hot, glaring ballroom, being with him. He never cared one bit for me; but--the first time I saw him he smiled at me, and he was kind and dear to me,--as he would be to any one,--and from that first moment I loved him--oh, loved him!"
She paused, a sacred sweetness in the pause.
Haldicott, sitting beside her in the fog, felt the presence of something radiant and snowy.
"And I sometimes thought and hoped--that he would care for me. I wrote to him all the time, letters I never sent; but I wrote as if he were to see them--some day. It's almost strange to me to think that such love didn't bring him to me by its very force and yearning. One hears, you know, of thoughts making themselves felt--becoming realities. I wonder where all those thoughts of mine went!"