"I—I cannot tell you," he said at last. "I only wish I could. Some day, I promise you, you shall know everything, but now it is impossible. But this much I will say—I love you as I have never loved any one in my whole life."
She trembled from head to foot and half closed her eyes.
For a moment neither spoke. Cyril felt that this very silence established a communion between them, more complete, more intense than any words could have done. But as he gazed at the small, drooping figure, he felt that his self-control was deserting him completely. He almost reeled with the violence of his emotion.
"I can't stand it another moment," he said to himself. "I must go before—" He did not finish the sentence but clenched his hands till the knuckles showed white through the skin.
He rose to his feet.
"I can't stay!" he exclaimed aloud. "Forgive me, Anita. I can't tell you what I feel. Good-bye!" He murmured incoherently and seizing her hands, he pressed them for an instant against his lips, then dropping them abruptly, he fled from the room.
Cyril in his excitement had not noticed that he had called Anita by her name nor did he perceive the start she gave when she heard it. After the door had clicked behind him, she sat as if turned to stone, white to her very lips.
Slowly, as if with an effort, her lips moved.
"Anita?" she whispered to herself. "Anita?" she repeated over and over again as if she were trying to learn a difficult lesson.
Suddenly a great light broke over her face.