Merriwell made a gesture of protest.
“Don’t stop me!” pleaded Dick. “I know what I am saying. I also know that I never really won a place in her heart. I may have aroused her admiration by something I did, and she liked me; but that was all, and I know she did not love me.”
“How do you know?”
“I can’t tell you just now; but I know it now—there isn’t a doubt about it.”
But Frank could not feel so sure, and he shook his head.
“If you were anybody but yourself you would see it, too,” asserted Starbright earnestly. “She loves you, Frank—she has always loved you. I know that!”
“Oh, my dear boy, you are quite wrong!” quickly cried Frank. “She has told me with her own lips that her affection for me was merely that which a sister might feel for a very dear brother.”
“And did you think she would tell you anything else unless you were the first to speak?” demanded Dick. “You are astute and far-seeing, Merry, but in this matter you have been blind as a bat. She is proud. Do you think she’d let you know how much she cared for you, thinking as she did that you cared more for another? Of course she would tell you she could never be anything but a sister to you.”
Dick smiled in a dry way, but that smile gave him pain of which Frank knew nothing, for the big, handsome blond athlete had been deeply smitten by the dark eyes of Inza Burrage, and the sacrifice he was making now was costing him the effort of his life.
Dick Starbright possessed physical courage, as he had often demonstrated; but, caring for Inza as he did, it now took great moral courage for him to abandon his last hope of ever winning her.