He stood up also, and took both her hands, not in a caress, but gravely, almost severely.
"Listen, Justine. You must understand exactly what this means—may mean. I am willing to go on as we are now...as long as we can...because I love you...because I would do anything to spare you pain. But if I speak I must say everything—I must follow this thing up to its uttermost consequences. That's what I want to make clear to you."
Her heart sank with a foreboding of new peril. "What consequences?"
"Can't you see for yourself—when you look about this house?"
"This house——?"
He dropped her hands and took an abrupt turn across the room.
"I owe everything to her," he broke out, "all I am, all I have, all I have been able to give you—and I must go and tell her father that you...."
"Stop—stop!" she cried, lifting her hands as if to keep off a blow.
"No—don't make me stop. We must face it," he said doggedly.
"But this—this isn't the truth! You put it as if—almost as if——"