"You say you are not my friend?" she said. "What are you, then?"
"One who loves you," he answered, "and one who has never really ceased to long for you as his own."
"And you talked of friendship!" she cried.
"God forgive me. Nora, a man does not know his own heart until the moment comes when he is put to the test as I was. I believed it possible that I could care for you in that way. I should have known better."
"I also should have known better," she said.
"No; you were so young. You could not have known what a man is capable and incapable of performing. The blame is all mine. And if I have helped to bring sorrow into your life, my punishment will be more than I can bear."
So much genuine grief and remorse revealed itself in his shaken voice that she laid her hand pityingly on his arm.
"Don't talk as though it were alone your fault," she said. "It was mine as well. If I could not have judged your heart, I could have judged my own."
"Nora!" he exclaimed, horror-stricken.
"I did not love you," she went on, almost to herself, "and I do not love you. I do not believe that I love any one on earth; but I always knew that I might grow to love you. And—perhaps I have something of my father in me—I should not have run so great a risk."