He started sharply.
"Please—" He checked himself almost before the one word had escaped his lips.
"Please—what?" she asked, naturally enough.
"Nothing."
His face quickened as he walked again, and she watched him curiously.
"As friends of one friend, we must be friends," she said, after a pause. "We have spoken frankly to-night, both of us. It is much better. With his life between us we can say things, perhaps, which neither of us would have said before. You are doing all you can. You ask me to do more than I can—I think. As for his life—let us not talk of what may happen. I think of it enough, as it is."
She turned as she spoke the last words, for she did not trust her face.
But he heard the true note of sorrow in her tone.
"Is it possible that you do not love him a little?" he asked, in a low voice.
"It is true," she answered mechanically, as though hearing him in a dream. "I could never love him."
Then, all at once she straightened herself and left the chimneypiece.