"No! Marian, No!"
"For that, I suppose, I should thank you. Thank the man who once wanted so much to make me his wife. You did wish to make me—your wife?"
"Yes—yes. But that is all over," says he desperately.
"For you, yes! For me——"
She pauses.
"Great heavens!" cries Rylton. "Why go on like this? Why go into it again? Was it my fault? At that time I was a poor man. I laid my heart at your feet, but"—drawing a long breath—"I was a poor man. It all lay in that."
"Ah! You will throw that in my teeth always," says she—not violently now, not even with a touch of excitement, but slowly, evenly. "Even in the days to come. Yet it was not that that killed your love for me. There was something else. Go on. Let me hear it."
"There is nothing to hear. I beg of you, Marian, to——"
"To let you off?" says she, with a ghastly attempt at gaiety. "No, don't hope for that. There is something—something that has cost me—everything. And I will learn it. No one's love dies without a cause. And there is a cause for the death of yours. Be frank with me, now, in this our last hour. Make me a confession."
Five minutes ago she would have thrown her arms round him, and besought him, with tender phrases, to tell her what is on his mind. Now she stands apart from him, with a cold, lifeless smile upon her still colder lips.