"Except?"
He was conscious of the encouragement at once, and then there was no holding him.
"Ah, I needn't tell you, dearest," he said passionately, dropping on his knees beside her. "You know—you have always known."
The words of Caryll Carleigh came back to her: "If he was dead he'd have a hold over you that would keep you straight."
She hadn't believed them then. Kneedrock had been dead, and it hadn't kept her straight—dead, that is, so far as knowledge and belief were concerned. But now everything within her told her that Carleigh was right.
She was sure she would never flirt again, or ever want to. Still, she was not sure that she could give Gerald Andrews all that he craved—all, indeed, that he deserved.
"I'm only a husk," she said dispiritedly. "I'm a poor thing to want. Once you told me my heart was a stone. It isn't even that now. I haven't any heart at all."
One arm he had slipped about her, his hand pressed above her waist. He could feel her heart pounding.
"I'll find it and keep it," he said; growing more sure.
"But it will never beat again."