"I will give no such promise," I began furiously. "I will——"
Then I stopped short.
"Forgive me. I have some decent instincts left, I hope—in spite of my being a detective," I added bitterly. "You are, of course, within your rights; and if you so command, I have no option but to obey. But even you cannot command me or compel me to cease from loving you. Am I to have no explanation?"
"You are to have no explanation," she repeated in a dull, dreamy voice, as if her thoughts were elsewhere, and with her eyes fixed on a far-off space of sky which she could see through the window.
"Except, perhaps—you have already said it—it is because you hate me," I prompted bitterly.
Moveless as a listening sleep-walker, she made answer:
"It is not because I hate you."
"Do you, or do you not, hate me?" I pleaded.
And again, dully, indifferently, like one speaking in her sleep, she replied:
"I do not hate you."