"Oh, Hugh! I am not worthy to be loved by you." He tried to lift her to her feet, absolutely dumb with amazement. "Don't! Don't! Let me lie here till you are gone. I can't bear to have you see my face again.
"Grace!" he cried blankly.
"Oh, if I had been drowned this could have been avoided. Why don't you say something, Henry? I cannot tell him." Veath could only shake his head in response to Ridgeway's look of amazed inquiry.
"Is she mad?" groaned the returned lover.
"Mad? No, I am not mad," she cried shrilly, desperately. "Hugh, I know I will break your heart, but I must tell you. I cannot deceive you. I cannot be as I once was to you."
"Cannot be--deceived me--once was--" murmured he, bewildered.
"While I mourned for you as dead I learned to love another. Forgive me, forgive me!" It was more than a minute before he could grasp the full extent of her confession and he could not believe his ears.
Gradually his mind emerged from its oblivion and the joy that rushed to his heart passed into every vein in his body. At his feet the unhappy girl; at the window the rigid form of the man to whom he knew her love had turned; in the centre of this tableau he stood, his head erect, his lungs full, his face aglow.
"Say you will forgive me, Hugh. You would not want me, knowing what you do."
"For Heaven's sake, Hugh," began Veath; but the words choked him.