"Laurence, you do not love me--you cannot love me--or you would not make it harder for me; your feeling for me is not love, it is selfishness. I must bow to your will, I must flout my father in his grave, I must cast all to the winds that you may gain your wish."
"Olive!" His voice was husky and broken. "I would do all that and more for you. But since you hold my love so low, let us forget that I have told it; let us part here now, and for always."
"Laurence, Laurence, my heart will break."
"And for a shadow, Olive."
"No, no!" she cried, "no shadow, no folly this. It is only too real. You are right; let us--let us say good-bye."
"You tell me to go?"
"I--tell--you--to--go."
"Then listen to me. I love you, and I intend that you shall be my wife. I don't care for Carson, or the money, or the threatened evil, or anything else. I sweep all these away. I say good-bye now, and I go to London--to Athelstane Place."
Olive looked bewildered. "In God's name why?" she faltered.
"To learn if the man who was murdered there was the man you should have married."