Something like a groan was forced from him. She broke off, drawing in her breath sharply. "What is the matter?" she asked. "Are you suffering?"
"Yes," he said. "I am suffering. It's my fault, for not making you understand, and yours because you haven't let me believe in you, worship you as the angel you were meant to be. I don't know what you are, but whatever you are I love you with all there is of me. Only—what I asked was—that you'd let me take you out of this life to something better. Now don't misunderstand in another way! I'd rather die a thousand deaths than wrong you. I ask nothing from you for myself. When I knew that you were safe I'd go, and not even see you again, unless—but how can I explain that I mean only good for you, with no evil or selfishness, yet not marriage?"
"Not marriage!"
Mary wrenched her hands away, and stepped back from him. There were men, she knew, who loved women but did not marry them. She had learned this thing through the tragedy of her schoolmate, her friend, whose life had been swallowed up in mystery and darkness because men could be vile and treacherous, taking everything and giving nothing. No one save himself could have made her believe that this deep-eyed Prince was such a man.
After all, the light in which she had seen their souls together in the beginning of things had been a false light. She had never known his soul, for what she thought she knew had been very noble and splendid, and the reality was bad. It was as if she had begun to open the door of her heart, to let in a white dove, and peeping out had seen instead a vulture. She slammed the door shut; and the sweet new thing that had stirred in the depths of her nature fell back asleep or dead.
"I'm going down now," she said, in a toneless voice. "Don't come with me. I never want to speak to you again."
"'I can't promise!' she exclaimed. 'I've never wanted to marry'"