"May I not? So intimate as we have become, I thought—"
"I will not be one of a dozen or two." And as she answered him, she dropped her tone of raillery, and spoke in a low, soft, sweet voice. It sounded so sweet on Bertram's ear.
"But if there be not one—not one other; not one other now—what then, Annie?"
"Not one other now?—Did you say now? Then there has been one."
"Yes; there has been one."
"And she—what of her?"
"It is a tale I cannot tell."
"Not to me? I should not like you the less for telling me. Do tell me." And she pressed her hand again upon his arm. "I have known there was something that made you unhappy."
"Have you?"
"Oh, yes. I have long known that. And I have so wished to be a comfort to you—if I could. I, too, have had great suffering."