She shook her head again, and lifting her eyes and looking at him straightly but sadly, she said in a still lower voice:
"Lord Edwin, I do not love you."
"I never said, thought, you did," he responded, promptly. "Why, you've only known me such a short time, and I'm not such a conceited bounder to think that you've fallen in love with me already. I only want you to let me try and win your love; and—I think I shall do so," he said in a modest but manly way, which would at once have won Ida's heart—if it had not been won already. "If you will only give me some hope, just tell me that I've a chance, that you'll let me, try—"
Ida smiled a sad little smile.
"If I said as much as that—But I cannot. Lord Edwin, you—you have told me that you love me, and it would not be fair—ah, please don't try to persuade me! Don't you see how terrible it would be if I were to let you think that I might come to care for you, and I did not do so."
"For God's sake, don't say 'no,'" broke from him, and his face paled under the tan.
She turned away from him, her eyes full of tears which she dared not let him see.
"I—I must have time," she said, almost desperately. "Will you give me a day, two days?" she asked, quite humbly. "I want to do what you want, but—I want to think: there is something I should have to tell you."
He flushed to the roots of his hair.
"If it's anything that's happened in the past, anyone else—of course, loving you as I do, I have seen that there has been something on your mind, some trouble besides your father's death—but if it is past, I don't mind. I know I can teach you to forget it, whatever it is. Ida, trust yourself to me."