“Oh, Louis,” she murmured, “forgive me; I never thought you cared so much.”
“How should you? I am not a man to wear my heart upon my sleeve. I think I have always loved you; but living as familiarly as we have lived, seeing you whenever I wished, the thought that some day this might end never occurred to me. It was only when the possibility of some other man’s claiming your love and taking you from me presented itself, that my heart rose up in arms against it,—and then I asked you to be my wife.”
“Yes,” she replied, raising her pale face; “and I refused. The same cause that moved me then, and to which you submitted without protest, rules me now, and you know it.”
“No; I do not know it. What then might have had a possible issue is now done with—or do I err?”
Her mouth trembled piteously, but no tears came as she lowered her head.
“Then listen to me. You may think me a poor sort of a fellow even to wish you to marry me when you assure me that you love another. That means that you do not love me as a husband should be loved, but it does not prove that you never could love me so.”
“It proves just that.”
“No, you may think so now, but let me reason you into seeing the falsity of your thought,—for I do not wish to force or impel you to do a thing repugnant to your reason as well as to your feelings. To begin with, you do not dislike me?”
His face was painful in its eagerness.
“I have always loved you as a dear brother.”