"Because I loved you, Gerald."
"You still say that—now?"
"Yes. My love for him was quite another thing. I can't explain, and I don't expect you to understand."
"I see—I think I see. The other was a—well, a sort of obsession."
"Exactly. You could hit on no better word."
"Yet you believed that you loved me. You think that you could care for two men at once?"
She moistened her dry lips and spoke, feebly.
"If I had not been so alone in the world, Gerald, I might have loved several. There are so many different loves, you know; differing in kind and in degree. The love for a father, for a son, for a brother"—her face lightened with sudden hope,—"that was really what I felt for him, Gerald; the love that a mother has for a son, the love that a sister has for a brother—don't you, oh, can't you, understand? I loved you in quite another way—it's so different—and, if I tried to explain any more, I should break a solemn oath—I should bring a curse on my head"——
Amherst's face lit with a sudden, heated gleam. He turned and spoke fiercely.
"Lynn! Don't insult my intelligence by telling me stuff of that sort, but listen! Promise that you'll never see him again, and that you'll do your best to forget him! Promise that he'll be nothing to you in the future! and I'll forgive all the rest. Come to me! I want you. I won't ask you a question, not a question. Marry me to-morrow and I'll kill the first man—or woman—who breathes a word against you. Lynn!"