"Of course I've known it."
"And not said a word to me?"
"I've tried to tell you. It's been so difficult. You've got such funny ideas about some things. I wasn't going to lose you."
Something he saw in Millie's face startled him. He came nearer to her. They had both completely forgotten Ellen. She gave Millie one look, then quietly left the room.
"But you must understand, Millie," he began, a new note of almost desperate urgency in his voice. "I've been trying to tell you all the summer. I don't love this girl and she doesn't love me. It would be perfectly criminal to force us to marry. She doesn't want to marry me. I swear she doesn't. I don't know whose child this is——"
"Could it be yours?"
"There's another fellow——"
"Could it be yours?"
"Yes, if you want to know, it could. But she hates me now. She says she won't marry me—she does really. And this was all before I knew you. If it had happened after I knew you it would be different. But you're the only woman I've ever loved, you are truly. I'm not much of a fellow in many ways, I know, but you can make anything of me. And if you turn me down I'll go utterly to pieces. There's never been any one since I first saw you."
She interrupted him, looking past him at the shining window.