She looked at him in evident surprise and disquiet.
"I asked what you think of the marriage of the clergy," he went on, "because it seems to me right to tell you that Mr. Candish loves you."
She flushed to her temples, starting impulsively in her seat.
"Mr. Ashe," she said vehemently, "what right have you to talk to me of such subjects at all?"
"None," he answered, "none at all,—unless—None that you would recognize; but I wish to atone for the wrong I did in speaking to you, and to say what he would never say. If it were possible that you cared for him, I should perhaps help you both."
"You forget, I think, that I have been married."
"I do not forget anything," Philip returned desperately. "It is only that he is a good man, a noble man, a man that would never have fallen under his weakness as I did, and if you cared for him, he is too fine to be allowed to suffer. He loved you long before I ever saw you."
"He has never given me any sign of it."
Her flushed cheeks and something in the way in which she said this seemed to him to indicate that she did love Candish. He had been moved by the most sincere desire to sacrifice his own will and happiness to the well-being of the woman he loved, and if it were that she loved his rival he had been ready to forget everything but that. Now by a quick revulsion it seemed to him that he could not endure the success of this man whose cause he had been pleading.
"Ah!" he cried, bending toward her, "you love him!"