She sat perfectly motionless for a moment. Then she looked up at him, with a piteous entreaty.
“What shall I say?” she murmured.
“Say nothing,” he replied, huskily. “I give you your freedom, Miss Marlowe. Knowing, as I do, how cruelly you have been deceived—you and Lord Cecil,” he put in, as if the speaking of his name were difficult to him, “there is no other course open to me. I love you—ah, yes!—you know that; but my very love for you pleads for you against myself! And so I give you back all your pledges, and say simply, ‘good-by!’”
He held out his hand, eying her keenly and sorrowfully. But she did not place her burning hand in his. Instead, she shook her head slowly.
“Stay,” she murmured, almost inaudibly, and her pale face grew crimson for a second.
He leaned upon the couch, and bent over her, trembling, and white as death.
“You say ‘Stay!’” he breathed. “Think—think what the word means to me, Doris!”
“I—I have thought!” she breathed.
“It means—ah, you cannot imagine all it means to me! Will you repeat it?”
“Yes,” she said, in as low a voice as before.