"Does it matter what he thinks?" asked Bernard, full of a new alarm. "Is the man anything to you, Doris?"
"Anything to me? No, I have only seen him once."
"Yet you would like to stand high in his opinion?"
"Well, yes. There is something grand--heroic, about him. He would die for the truth. The man is made of the sort of stuff of which the old martyrs used to be made." Doris spoke with great enthusiasm.
Bernard's alarm increased by leaps and bounds. "Oh, Doris, darling, don't have anything to do with him!" he exclaimed passionately.
"Why not?" She looked startled. The flush which had risen to her face as she spoke so earnestly of Sinclair deepened into a very warm colour.
"Because I do not wish you to know him."
"Why not?" she repeated.
"My instinct tells me that he has impressed you strongly and that you think a great deal of him, and if you get to care for him, this hero whom you admire so much, you won't care for your poor Bernard any more!" He ended in doleful tones.
"You foolish boy!" Doris cried, with complete change of voice. "You know very well that although our engagement has been broken off and I have vowed that I will never, never marry you--that is, unless some of the debt is paid--I shall never love anybody in all the world as I love you," she ended with a little sob, and buried her face in her hands, lest he should see the tears which filled her eyes.