“I am sorry you have spoken of love to me, Mr. Wilmer. Perhaps if you consider it for a while you will decide that it is not best.”
“My decision was made before I spoke to you, Miss Elsworth.”
“I am very selfish,” she said. “I want the first and only love, and that you cannot give me.”
“Perhaps not the first; but I can give you the greatest and deepest love my heart has ever known. I will not censure my dead wife nor speak of her faults; but this I will say, that she never held the place in my heart that you do.”
“It seems strange to me, Mr. Wilmer, to hear you speak of love. I did not think you would ever love another woman.”
“Perhaps I never should had you not crossed my path.”
He came and stood by her chair, but he made no demonstration of the all-absorbing love of his generous nature. He looked calmly down at the fair face beside him, and if he thought her the most beautiful woman on earth she did not know it.
“Blanche.”
She looked quickly up into his face.