He took her hand and held it in his.
“And will you tell me that—that you do not love Lord Cecil; that you can forget him?”
She turned her face away.
“Don’t—don’t drive me too hard!” she murmured, piteously.
His face grew wan and haggard again.
“I—I understand,” he said. “Yes, I understand—and I must be content.”
He let her hand fall, and walked to the window, turning his back to her. Then he returned, and kneeling beside her, said, in a low voice:
“Doris, I asked you to trust me. I ask it still. Remember that no man, not even Lord Cecil”—with a touch of bitterness—“could love you more dearly than I love you; and—trust me.”
“Yes, I trust you! I have always done so,” she said, almost inaudibly.
“We are to be married on the sixteenth,” he said, musingly. “Everything is ready, Doris.”