He paused again. Then more hurriedly—
“There was one to whom—”
“Stop!” came in a quick, angry voice. “I know what you would say; but you do not love another. It is not true.”
Humphrey Armstrong paused again, and then in a low, husky voice—
“I bade farewell to one whom I hoped on my return to make my wife. It pains me to say these words, but you force them from me.”
“Have I not degraded myself enough? Have I not suffered till I am nearly mad that you tell me this?” came in piteous tones.
“Was I to blame!”
“You? No. It was our fate. What a triumph was mine, to find that I, the master who had lived so long with my secret known but to poor Bart, was now beaten, humbled—to find that day by day I was less powerful of will—that my men were beginning to lose confidence in me, and were ready to listen to the plots and plans of one whom I had spared, for him to become a more deadly enemy day by day. Humphrey Armstrong, have you no return to offer me for all I have suffered—all I have lost? Tell me this is false. You do not—you cannot—love this woman.”
He was silent.
“Is she so beautiful? Is she so true? Will she give you wealth and power? Would she lay down her life for you? Would she degrade herself for you as I have done, and kneel before you, saying, ‘Have pity on me—I love you’?”