"Can you?" Loftus requested. "Can you forgive?"
Forgive indeed! Had she not so forgiven that she had almost wished a renewal of that grave offense? She did not answer. It was her face that spoke for her. But the silence Loftus affected to misconstrue.
"Couldn't you try?"
"Yes." The monosyllable fell from her softly, almost inaudibly. Yet for his purpose it sufficed.
"Thank you. I hoped that you would. But will you let me tell you now how I came to behave as I did?"
To this, timorously, with the slightest movement of her pretty head, the girl assented.
"Because I could not help myself. Because at the first sight of you I knew that I loved you. Because I felt that I could never love anyone else."
Marie started. She was crimson. Starting, she half got from her seat. Loftus caught at her hand. She disengaged it. But he caught at it again.
"I love you," he continued, burning her with his words, with the contact of his fingers, that had intertwisted with hers. "Look at me, I love your eyes. Speak to me, I love your voice."
But the door opened. Preceded by a precautionary roulade, the ex-first lady reappeared.