“Because you can never forgive?”
“Because I have no power to give what you would ask for!”
“Your love?”
She did not answer. She turned her face away, for she knew she could not in truth say “No” to that, for the knowledge that she had been trying to stifle was with her now, the knowledge that meant that she could not love the man whose wife she had promised to be.
“My—my hand—” she said.
And he, not understanding for the moment, looked at her, and then suddenly understanding came to him.
“You—you mean?”
“You—you did not answer my letter, and I—I waited,” she said, and her voice was low and muffled. There was no pride in her face now; all its hardness, all its bitterness and scorn were gone.
“I waited and waited—and thought—hoped,” she said, “and nothing came. And yesterday a man—a man I like and admire, a fine man, a good man, honest and noble, a man who—who loves me better than I deserve, came to me—and—and so to-day it is too late! Though,” she cried, with a touch of scorn for herself, “it would have made no difference—nothing would have made any difference. You—you understand that I scarcely know what I am saying!”
“You have given your promise to another man?” he asked quietly.