'Captain Dalton,' said she, looking him direct in the eyes, 'you have tried to woo me. I need not mince words or matters with you, but I have one question to ask.'
'Ask it,' said he, huskily.
'Are you at liberty to woo any woman honestly, honourably?'
Dalton grew very pale, but he replied, evasively,
'I have loved against my will—against my conscience—though your very name should have repressed that love.'
'My name!'
'Your name of Laura.'
The name left his lips, as she remarked it had done before, in an unwilling manner, as if it were familiar, yet most distasteful.
'Why?' she asked.
'I knew another Laura, and she—but let me not think of her at this moment when I feel that I love you with a passion that I have sought in vain to overcome.'