"I couldn't." A swift shadow fell like a cloud over his countenance.
"Darling, even now—Dorothy, do you fully realize what you are doing?
All your life to be tied——"
"Hush!" Her finger was on his lips only to be kissed till she took it away. "I won't let you talk like that a minute—not a single minute! But, Keith, there is something I want you to say." Her voice was half pleading, half whimsical. Her eyes, through her tears, were studying his face, turned partly away from her. "Confession is good for the soul."
"Well? Anything more?" He smiled faintly.
"Yes; only this time it's you. YOU'VE got to do it."
"I?"
"Yes." Her voice rang with firm decision. "Keith, I want to know why—why all this time you've acted so—so that I had to find out through Susan that you—cared. And I want to know—when you stopped hating me. And——"
"Dorothy—I never, never hated you!" cut in the man passionately.
"But you acted as if you did. Why, you—you wouldn't let me come near you, and you were so—angry with me."
"Yes, I—know." The man fell back in his chair and was silent.
There was a long minute of waiting.