Had she done so, her statement would have been something like this: "There is no room in my heart for a lover, for the reason that the
cause I have espoused fills it completely. The people whose wrongs I
seek to redress, the victims whose wandering souls cry out for
vengeance, and the women exiles in frozen Siberia whose fates are too
terrible to relate, fill my whole heart and being so completely as to
leave no room for personal love."
She would have said that, and much more, but she restrained herself;
and he rose to take his departure.
She gave him both her hands, and in a low tone that was full of
suppressed feeling, she said to him, at parting: "Do not think, my friend, that I have failed to appreciate all the
goodness of your motives in coming to me to-day. From my heart I thank
you, and if it should be as you say, that we may never meet again,
although I see no reason for such a thing, I wish you to know that in
parting, Zara de Echeveria admired and esteemed you above all other men
of her acquaintance. Good-bye."