Jack winced.
“I have been a brute!” he murmured.
“No, Jack,” she said—and she put her hand on his arm and looked up at him with a smile—“you meant well and honestly. You did not know how it stood with you. I could not have loved you so well if you had been false—if you had forgotten her. I have been thinking it out, Jack; and I know now that to love once—as you and I love—is to love forever.”
“But it is past,” he said, “utterly, irrevocably past. You do not know the barrier that stands immovably between her and me.”
“Do I not?” she murmured, inaudibly. “Be it what it will, your love and hers stand firm on either side of it. But no more of that, Jack. I am glad you have come to me—very, very glad. And though I cannot be your wife, Jack”—with what tenderness and sadness those two words were breathed—“I can be your friend. I want you to promise me something.”
Jack pressed her hand. He could not trust himself to speak.
“I want you to promise that you will not go away again, that you will not leave London whatever happens—mind, whatever happens—without letting me know! I may ask that much, Jack?”
“You may ask anything,” he said, huskily; “I will do anything you ask of me—simply anything.”
“I think you would,” she said. “Then I have your promise? And, Jack, this must make no difference between us; you will come and see me?”
“I do not deserve to come within a mile of you.”