“Stop, stop, please, Ned,” said Ess, when at last he allowed her to speak. “I don’t want to listen to you. It isn’t right for me to, for I can never feel for you in any degree that way. I cannot be any other than a friend.”
“A friend,” he said scornfully. “The same as Whip Thompson, and Darby the Bull, and Blazes, and the rest are your friends. I want more than that, Ess. I want you. I want——”
She stopped him again with a gesture.
“I can hear nothing more,” she said, with quiet dignity. “You must take my word as final. There can never be anything more between us than there is now.”
“Is there no hope for me?” he said. “I don’t want to press you now, Ess, but perhaps later——”
“There is no hope,” she said, with an air of finality. “Now, or ever.”
He was silent a moment, fiddling nervously with a button on his coat. She moved as if to turn back, but he stopped her, and burst out suddenly “You’ve given me no reason.... Is it—will you tell me if there is anyone else?”
“I think that is more than you have any right to ask,” she said steadily; “but perhaps....” She stopped and thought again with a troubled mind. She felt she would have told him openly that she was pledged to Steve Knight, and that would have settled the thing for good; but Steve had said to say nothing, and her uncle had agreed that it was wiser not to.
“I can only tell you that there is a man I care for more than for any other,” she said at last; “and you must be content with that.”
“Is it Steve Knight?” he shot at her.