“I must,” he answered, and came and sat at my feet. “Oh, do let me, Miss Saurin. I have been talking to your sister-in-law. She was crying, but would not tell me why. Only—I gathered that you and she are not happy together. Dear girl that I love, why will you not let me try and make you happy? Marry me, Deirdre.”
“Do not speak of such a thing,” I said gently. “It is impossible. You don’t know how sorry you make me. But—I can never marry any one.”
“A girl like you cannot live alone, unmarried. By God! you were not made for such a life!”
“God knows what I was made for,” I answered bitterly. “I am beginning to wonder. But I am sure it was not to many you, Maurice. You must not think of this any further.”
“Why not? Ah—but I know why not. You think Kinsella is still alive. I know that is it. My poor child, how can you delude yourself so?”
“You don’t know that it is a delusion,” I said.
“But I do.”
“You do not,” I contended almost violently. “No one knows; no one can know for certain—”
“But I do,” he repeated oddly: so oddly that my attention was arrested. My heart stood still.
“What do you know?” I demanded, in a trembling voice. “What can you know that is not known to every one? And it is not enough. For me at least it is not enough.”