"What you've gone through!
Don't you think that I-- Oh, Ashley, you should have known, years ago, that you loved her and not me!
Why didn't you!
Everything would have been so different, so-- Oh, you should have realized and not kept me dangling with all your talk about honor and sacrifice!
If you'd told me, years ago, I'd have-- It would have killed me but I could have stood it somehow.
But you wait till now, till Melly's dying, to find it out and now it's too late to do anything.
Oh, Ashley, men are supposed to know such things--not women!
You should have seen so clearly that you loved her all the time and only wanted me like--like Rhett wants that Watling woman!"
He winced at her words but his eyes still met hers, imploring silence, comfort.
Every line of his face admitted the truth of her words.
The very droop of his shoulders showed that his own self- castigation was more cruel than any she could give.
He stood silent before her, clutching the glove as though it were an understanding hand and, in the stillness that followed her words, her indignation fell away and pity, tinged with contempt, took its place. Her conscience smote her.
She was kicking a beaten and defenseless man--and she had promised Melanie that she would look after him.
"And just as soon as I promised her, I said mean, hurting things to him and there's no need for me to say them or for anyone to say them.
He knows the truth and it's killing him," she thought desolately.
"He's not grown up.
He's a child, like me, and he's sick with fear at losing her.
Melly knew how it would be--Melly knew him far better than I do.
That's why she said look after him and Beau, in the same breath.
How can Ashley ever stand this?
I can stand it.
I can stand anything.
I've had to stand so much.
But he can't--he can't stand anything without her."
"Forgive me, darling," she said gently, putting out her arms.
"I know what you must be suffering.
But remember, she doesn't know anything--she never even suspected-- God was that good to us."
He came to her quickly and his arms went round her blindly.
She tiptoed to bring her warm cheek comfortingly against his and with one hand she smoothed the back of his hair.
"Don't cry, sweet.
She'd want you to be brave.
She'll want to see you in a moment and you must be brave.
She mustn't see that you've been crying.
It would worry her."
He held her in a grip that made breathing difficult and his choking voice was in her ear.
"What will I do?
I can't--I can't live without her!"
"I can't either," she thought, shuddering away from the picture of the long years to come, without Melanie.
But she caught herself in a strong grasp.
Ashley was depending on her, Melanie was depending on her.
As once before, in the moonlight at Tara, drunk, exhausted, she had thought:
"Burdens are for shoulders strong enough to carry them."
Well, her shoulders were strong and Ashley's were not.
She squared her shoulders for the load and with a calmness she was far from feeling, kissed his wet cheek without fever or longing or passion, only with cool gentleness.
"We shall manage--somehow," she said.
A door opened with sudden violence into the hall and Dr. Meade called with sharp urgency:
"Ashley! Quick!"
"My God!
She's gone!" thought Scarlett.
"And Ashley didn't get to tell her good-by!