“You’re right, Shama,” the officer said, his voice sounding almost as tired as mine.
“We have not lived up to your standards. I have not lived up to your standards. I have been weak. I told you I loved you, but then I quaked on the brink, allowing my feet to step back from a bluff that might have landed me into happiness. I was a coward, Shama. And I fear that I will never measure up to the goodness inside you. Forgive me. Please.
“When I saw you faint, my feelings deepened. I couldn’t bear to think of you ill or dying, but yet, I allowed still another wedge to come between us. It was so easy to believe these two offensive men. Did I want to believe them, so that I would be rescued from taking that final step into the unknown? I don’t know. I don’t understand such a weakness.
“I do know that Mrs. Penn saw the truth. She sees the truth and always has. She accepts you as the key to a life lived in integrity and kindness. She never doubted you, and yet, you are willing to leave her and these precious children. That’s because of me. But I don’t want you to leave either. I want you to stay with us, to continue to love us and to forgive my doubts. I want you to teach me to be the kind of person you are.
“Actually, what I really want, my darling Shama, is for you to marry me and live forever at my side.”
Unbelievably, in front of the kids, Mrs. Penn, the two horrid men who’d just come from the village, and the deputy, who was still standing in the doorway and waiting to see what was required of him, Officer Krugel got down on one knee and begged for my hand.
I know what everyone wanted me to do, except maybe the preacher and the thief/drunkard, Mr. Barner, but I couldn’t. I’d lost my trust.