She had been so utterly happy--had she been thinking only of herself? But no, Francis had been happy too. Had Marion been right when she had accused her of defrauding not only herself, but him, of the best part of what love should mean--confidence and trust--and was this her punishment? And little by little, as she thought and puzzled over it all, the scales fell from her eyes and she knew the truth. She knew that she had "drugged her brain against realities, and lived in dreams,"--dreams which had been, as most dreams are, strange compounds of self-deception and hallucination, distorted, imaginary and futile.
And yet, while her hope and joy vanished like a vapour before the searching heat of truth, one thing remained firm--her love for Francis. Whatever mistakes she had made, whatever fancies she had taken for fact, this was actual, pure and irrefutable. It seemed to her suddenly that this was the only saving clause in the long list of errors, and she saw the difference it would have made if Francis had known the truth. No possible cloud could have come between them then, and all the rosy dreams in which she had indulged might have proved waking joys.
And even now she could not see how she could have acted differently--certainly not at the outset--it was impossible then to undeceive Francis; but later, supposing that when she first became aware of her love for him--supposing she had told him the truth then, making clear her affection at the same time, could he not have borne it? Had that been in reality her one hour of choice to which regret now turned with longing? At the time she had been so engrossed in her own rapture that she had passed it unheeding. And now, was it possible to tell him? And if she did so, how could she explain, how vindicate her own actions? She had taken his protestations, his tenderness under a false pretence. How could she tell him now, when his memory was groping back slowly and painfully, and he had already so much to bear in the fuller knowledge of his limitations--when he had no one but her?
She could not do it. The only thing she could do was to go on, to carry on what she had undertaken; and after all, if he did not love her he was absolutely dependent on her. She must school herself to listen to this talk of old days. It could be only for a time, for in the future there would be so many new interests for him that he would cease to think of the past. She would so fill his life that if she were only patient, surely she might hope for the day when she could say that he was hers in every thought. She would practise self-control and self-abnegation, and perhaps after a time this dull heartache and sense of loss would pass away.