"Ah, if we only had! Then you would have come into my life as a sister. How proud I would have been of you! How grateful for all you have done for me! But it is too late, now, to accept you on such terms. I have kissed you—not as a brother kisses his sister. I can never get that desire out of my blood!"
She shuddered and turned away from him. "Yes, you are right, I know. I am a woman, now; you have awakened me. There is nothing for us to do but part. It is hideous to be the playthings of fate."
"Well," he said grimly, "if I have made you a woman, you have made me a man! I can at least live cleanly and self-respectingly. Of course I can't see you again—not, at least, for a long time—not till we get over this—"
She looked up with the veriest shadow of a smile. "Oh, I shall not get over it! There is no chance of that! Right or wrong, I shall always feel the same toward you, always long for you. Isn't that a fearful confession? Yet, how can I help it?"
"Then it is for me to protect you all the more. I can live so that you need not be ashamed of me. But not near you."
She sat down again. Her head drooped like a heavy flower, her hands fell listlessly into her lap. A sudden draft distracted the candle and sent her shadow, distorted, to and fro upon the roof. Then footsteps were heard on the floor below, and a door slammed again. She looked up to say:
"Father has come home. Shall we tell him, now?"
Her head drooped like a heavy flower
"Must we?"