"Edward!" she said at last, and again, "Edward!"
Against some inward weight of unacknowledged conviction he allowed himself to hope, and, bending, he kissed the hands that lay on his. Not now, even, did she shrink, for she could not. It was as much as she could do not to respond. And she could not respond.
"You see, then?" he whispered. "At last you see!"
He looked up and faced the tender, inexorable love in her eyes.
"I see more clearly than ever," she said. "Please, dear, don't interrupt me. Not by word or by look even. I can't marry you unless—unless Edith voluntarily gives you up. I can't. I can't accept love that can be mine only through your disloyalty, through your breaking a promise you have given. And I can't let you take my love on those terms. It would kill love; it would kill the most sacred thing there is. No; loyalty is as sacred. And you mustn't ask her to set you free. Love can only give, only give—it cannot ask for itself."
He got up, wild with impotent yearning, inflamed to his inmost fibre.
"But are you flesh and blood!" he cried, "or are you some—some unsubstantial phantom that does not feel?"
She rose also with fire of loyalty to meet his fire of passion, and flung out her words with a strength that more than matched his violence.
"No, I am flesh and blood," she said, "and you know that I love you. But love is holier to me than to you. I can't love you differently. We can never come together while a single thread of loyalty, of common honour, has to be snapped to let us."
He interrupted.