There was another and a longer pause before she said:
“Because ’twere to do you a great wrong, sir. I believed when I gave you my promise that I would be strong enough to keep it. But I find that I am too weak. Oh, I am miserable on account of it! ’Tis not that I have failed in my respect for you—in my regard—but I feel that ’twould be impossible. Oh, I cannot do it—I cannot marry you, Mr. Long.”
“You do not love me as a girl should love her lover?” said he, and he was actually smiling.
She could not answer him. The truth seemed too cruel. She could only put her hand in his. That was her instinct. She knew that she could trust him to understand her.
“Yes, I see that you do not love me,” said he; “and I too have to confess that I cannot give to you the love of a lover.”
Her eyes opened wide as she looked at him; there was deep pathos in her look of innocent inquiry.
“You have found that your love is given to some one else?” he said, with great gentleness.
A flush came to her face; she turned away her head.
“And I—I too have given all my love to another,” he said still more gently.
Quickly she turned to him again. She laid the hand which he was not holding on the hand that held hers.