Even the brief explanation Ardbert offers is enough to sketch out a situation that is anything but simple. That she should have come to love him is, perhaps, not as much as a surprise as it could have been, nor that he would have found it in himself to return such a thing. After all, he had loved Hemera, all those lifetimes ago, though it taken the world being split into pieces for him to genuinely realize it as such, and has had his suspicions about whether or not those feelings had been reciprocated.

(And all the more so, now, when he's so recently met Hemera again.)

He doesn't apologize for leaving. In many ways, he cannot, given that he doubts it had been his intention in the first place and does not recall having done so besides. And even if he could bring himself to do so without it sounding false, it's not to Ardbert he'd need to do so. Still, it does take him a moment to find the right words and that's no mean feat.

"Who would I have been to stand in the way of love?"

There's a shrug with the words - he knows that the inhabitants of the shards can be, and often are, more concerned about such things than his own people had been.

"Although I see I may have a great deal to make up for."

If she asks it of him, or blames him for what he can no longer remember. But at least he knows, now, and can keep it in mind going forward.