“May—” began John, and then he paused, absolutely unable to find words to tell her the truth.
“Oh! do tell me, John!” she prayed, and she laid her hand beseechingly on his arm.
Then he looked at her, and there was great pain in his eyes and on his pale face.
“I should rather be dead—I swear it, though you may not believe it—than say to you what I am forced to say to-day.”
“Oh! you frighten me! What can it be?” cried May.
“Do you remember when—when I went away and left you, May,” went on John Temple, in a broken voice; “when I wrote to you and told you that you were to be quite sure of your feelings toward me if I were to be anything more to you; when I told you that I believed that if two people truly loved each other that nothing should part or change them?”
“I remember,” answered May, lifting her head and looking with steadfast eyes in his face, “when you wrote that there were other feelings between men and women besides the love that can not change, and that I was to question my heart. I did—I told you then my love could never change, and now I tell you again—it can never change.”
“My darling!”
He caught her to his breast, he kissed her eyes, her lips, her brow, and then in hurried, agitated words he tried to tell her all.
“May, I loved you then, and I love you now, how dearly none but my own heart can tell—but I should have told you the truth. I told you there were obstacles to our marriage, and that it must be a secret one, and you agreed to this. Our secret is now known. Mrs. Temple, my uncle’s wife, it seems, saw one of your letters to me, and she actually sent that brute, young Henderson, up to town to spy on you. He saw you enter Miss Webster’s house, and he went back and told your father.”