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"You have given up the compet.i.tion?" she said.
"Yes--and a lot more." He stood up, the wave of emotion ebbing, yet leaving him nearer, in his recovered calmness, than in the shock of their first moment.
"I didn't know, at first, how much you guessed," he went on quietly. "I was sorry I'd shown you Darrow's letter; but it didn't worry me much because I didn't suppose you'd think it possible that I should--take advantage of it.
It's only lately that I've understood that you knew everything." He looked at her with a smile. "I don't know yet how I found it out, for you're wonderful about keeping things to yourself, and you never made a sign.
I simply felt it in a kind of nearness--as if I couldn't get away from you.--Oh, there were times when I should have preferred not having you about--when I tried to turn my back on you, to see things from other people's standpoint. But you were always there--you wouldn't be discouraged. And I got tired of trying to explain things to you, of trying to bring you round to my way of thinking. You wouldn't go away and you wouldn't come any nearer--you just stood there and watched everything that I was doing."
He broke off, taking one of his restless turns down the long room. Then he drew up a chair beside her, and dropped into it with a great sigh.
"At first, you know, I hated it most awfully. I wanted to be let alone and to work out my own theory of things. If you'd said a word--if you'd tried to influence me--the spell would have been broken. But just because the actual _you_ kept apart and didn't meddle or pry, the other, the you in my heart, seemed to get a tighter hold on me. I don't know how to tell you,--it's all mixed up in my head--but old things you'd said and done kept coming back to me, crowding between me and what I was trying for, looking at me without speaking, like old friends I'd gone back on, till I simply couldn't stand it any longer. I fought it off till to-night, but when I came back to finish the work there you were again--and suddenly, I don't know how, you weren't an obstacle any longer, but a refuge--and I crawled into your arms as I used to when things went against me at school."
His hands stole back into hers, and he leaned his head against her shoulder like a boy.
"I'm an abysmally weak fool, you know," he ended; "I'm not worth the fight you've put up for me. But I want you to know that it's your doing--that if you had let go an instant I should have gone under--and that if I'd gone under I should never have come up again alive."
