He let her hands drop and got up and paced the room. He was suffering acutely—must he renounce even the joy of holding her in his arms?
"But I love you, Amaryllis—I love you, dearest child—"
And now again she said "Alas!"—and that was all.
"Amaryllis—this is a frightful sacrifice to me—must you insist upon it?"
Then her eyes seemed to flash fire and her cheeks grew rose—and she stood up and faced him.
"I tell you, John, you do not know me. You have seen a well brought up, conventional girl—milk and water, ready to obey your slightest will—I had not found myself. I am a creature as primitive and passionate as a savage"—her breath came in little pants with her great emotion,—"I could not belong to two men—it would utterly degrade me, then I do not know what I should become. I love Denzil, body and soul—and while he lives no other man shall ever touch me; that is what passion means to me—fidelity to the thing I love! He is my Beloved and my darling, and I must go away from you altogether and throw off the thought of the family, and implore Denzil to take me when he comes home if you can agree to the only terms I can offer you now."
John bowed his head. Life seemed over for him and done.
Amaryllis came close to him, then she stood on tiptoe and kissed his brow. Her vehemence had died down in her sorrow for his pain.
"John," she whispered softly, "won't you always be my dearest friend? And when the baby comes it will be a deep interest to us both, and you must love it because it is mine and an Ardayre—and the comfort of that must fill our lives. I truly believe that you did everything, meaning it for the best, only perhaps it is dangerous to play with the creation of life—perhaps that is why fate forced me to know."
John drew her to him, he smoothed the soft brown hair back from her brow and kissed her tenderly, but not on the lips—those he told himself he must renounce for evermore.