"I could not help it."
It was the old answer that seems so weak, so futile, so foolish, and yet the only answer that could be given; a vague reply, and yet she comprehended.
"I've been a mean coward," he exclaimed. "But at least I love you, and I could not help it."
"Yes, I believe that—that you love me, I mean,—but you could have helped it," she answered, faintly.
"Well, I ought to have helped it," he admitted, in honest misery; "but I love you, and before you it was hard to be silent."
"But you loved the other girl before?"
"No, never, I swear to you!"
"Look me in the face, Richard."
She turned him about in the moonlight and gazed at him keenly, passionately, hungrily almost. He met her glance undaunted. The incubus of the secret was lifted from him—he was another man, even though still bound.
"Emily, I swear to you that my heart has never beat quicker at the thought of her since I have known her. Believe that."