And now, after all that--after you've
won your fight--alone--and stand where you stand now--for me to come
begging! And take a gift like that! I tell you it _is_ pity. It can't be
anything else."
There was another minute of silence, and then he heard her make a little
noise in her throat, a noise that would have been a sob had there not
been something like a laugh in it. The next moment she said, "Come over
here, Roddy," and as he hesitated, as if he hadn't understood, she
added, "I want you to look at me. Over here by the window, where there's
light enough to see me by."
He came wonderingly, very slowly, but at last, with her outstretched
hand she reached him and drew him around between her and the window.
"Look into my face," she commanded. "Look into my eyes; as far in as you
can. Is it--oh, my dearest"--the sob of pure joy came again--"is it pity
that you see?"
She'd had her hands upon his shoulders, but now they clasped themselves
behind his head. Her vision of him had swum away in a blur, and without
the support she got from him she'd have been swaying giddily.
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