He caught both her hands in his and looked her steadily in the face. "I have heard them say that you never told a lie in all your life," he went on. "Speak the truth still, Elizabeth, and tell me whether you love Percival Heron as a woman should love a man! Tell me the truth."
She shrank a little at first, and tried to take her hands away. But when she found that Brian's clasp was firm, she drew herself up and looked him in the face with eyes that were full of an unutterable sadness, but also of a resolution which nothing on earth could shake.
"You have no right to ask me the question," she said; "and I have no right to give you any answer."
But something in her troubled face told him what that answer would have been.
CHAPTER XXIV.
"GOOD-BYE."
"I see," he said, dropping her hands and turning away with a heavy sigh. "I was too late."
"Don't misunderstand me," said Elizabeth, with an effort. "I shall be very happy. I owe a debt to my uncle and my cousins which scarcely anything can repay."
"Give them anything but yourself" he said, gravely. "It is not right—I do not speak for myself now, but for you—it is not right to marry a man whom you do not love."