“Or, if that is so, look at me and say I don’t love you.”
But Miss Grace did not speak, nor yet did she look.
“Or will you tell me that there is some one else whom you like better?” he asked, regaining hope.
No, Miss Grace did not seem inclined to vouchsafe that information either.
“Or that the care of the child would be an objection?”
“No!” she burst out, in an agonized tone.
“Then what do you mean by impossible?” he asked. “It seems to me very possible indeed.”
She looked at him—that proud, handsome, erect man, with a smile of expectant happiness on his good face—and tried to take her hands away.
“Oh!” she sobbed out, “don’t you think I would if I could? I have not been so happy that I would throw away such happiness as you could give me. Some day you may know what it costs me to tell you that it is quite impossible.”
“You give me no hope?” he asked, in a dull voice, and she saw that he had grown white to his very lips.