'What! Then how, in the name of Heaven, do you know—she wants—what you ask?'
'There can't be any doubt about that,' said the girl, firmly.
With all his tenderness for her, so little still did he understand what she was going through, that he plainly thought all her pain had come of knowing that this other page was in his life—he had no glimpse of the girl's passionate need to think of that same long-turned-over page as unmarred by the darker blot.
'You absurd, ridiculous child!' With immense relief he dropped into the nearest chair. 'Then all this is just your own unaided invention. Well, I could thank God!' He passed his handkerchief over his face.
'For what are you thanking God?'
He sat there obviously thinking out his plan of action.
'Suppose—I'm not going to risk it—but suppose——' He looked up, and at the sight of Jean's face he rose with an expression strangely gentle. The rather hard eyes were softened in a sudden mist. 'Whether I deserve to suffer or not, it's quite certain you don't. Don't cry, dear one. It never was the real thing. I had to wait till I knew you before I understood.'
Her own eyes were brimming as she lifted them in a passion of gratitude to his face.
'Oh! is that true? Loving you has made things clear to me I didn't dream of before. If I could think that because of me you were able to do this——'
'You go back to that?' He seized her by the shoulders, and said hoarsely, 'Look here! Do you seriously ask me to give up the girl I love—to go and offer to marry a woman that even to think of——'