'Oh, Clare!' exclaimed Trevor, and all the old love beamed in his eyes as he uttered her name.
'Neither doubt nor misunderstand me,' said Clare, very calmly, and in a voice that was earnest, sweet, and low. 'Papa and others too' ('What others?' thought Chute) 'have tried hard to make me forget what you and I were to each other once, but he and they have failed.'
'Thank God!' exclaimed Chute, so full of emotion that he clutched the back of a chair for support.
'In the seeming emptiness of my heart,' said Clare, speaking in a low tone and with downcast eyes, while the throbbing of her bosom was apparent beneath her dress, 'I made for myself a life within a life, known to myself alone.'
'And that life, darling?'
'Was full of you.'
He made a step towards her; but she drew back, and said, questioningly:
'And you, Trevor, in the days of this long separation?'
'Have never, never forgotten you, Clare!'
'Yet you must have seen many!'