"I hope I was answered, Yorke?
"'I seem to be a blind, besotted sort of person,' was my remark.
"'Loved you!' she cried. 'Why, I have been as frank with you as a sister—never shunned you, never feared you. You cannot,' she affirmed triumphantly—'you cannot make me tremble with your coming, nor accelerate my pulse by your influence.'
"I alleged that often, when she spoke to me, she blushed, and that the sound of my name moved her.
"'Not for your sake!' she declared briefly. I urged explanation, but could get none.
"'When I sat beside you at the school feast, did you think I loved you then? When I stopped you in Maythorn Lane, did you think I loved you then? When I called on you in the counting-house, when I walked with you on the pavement, did you think I loved you then?'
"So she questioned me; and I said I did.
"By the Lord! Yorke, she rose, she grew tall, she expanded and refined almost to flame. There was a trembling all through her, as in live coal when its vivid vermilion is hottest.
"'That is to say that you have the worst opinion of me; that you deny me the possession of all I value most. That is to say that I am a traitor to all my sisters; that I have acted as no woman can act without degrading herself and her sex; that I have sought where the incorrupt of my kind naturally scorn and abhor to seek.' She and I were silent for many a minute. 'Lucifer, Star of the Morning,' she went on, 'thou art fallen! You, once high in my esteem, are hurled down; you, once intimate in my friendship, are cast out. Go!'
"I went not. I had heard her voice tremble, seen her lip quiver. I knew another storm of tears would fall, and then I believed some calm and some sunshine must come, and I would wait for it.