He still held her hands in his, and his face was flushed and his eyes shining with an eager but noble passion.
Harley and the candidate, in the shrubbery, never stirred. They listened, but they forgot that they were listening.
The girl lifted her eyes to those of her lover, and there was in them no reproach, only a high, sad courage.
"You do not mean what you say now, Arthur," she said. "I have given my promise to my father, and you must help me to be strong, for alone I am weak, very weak. None can help me but you. You must go, as you said you would go, but your face shall always be with me here. Though I may not be your wife, I shall be true to you all my life."
"In such moments as these the woman is always stronger than the man," breathed Jimmy Grayson.
Lee dropped her hands again and walked a step or two away.
"Helen," he said, "forgive me, and forget what I said. I was base when I spoke. But I have found it too hard!—too hard!"
Her eyes still expressed no reproach; there was in them something almost divine. She loved him the more because of his weakness, although she would not yield to it.
"It is hard, very hard for us both," she whispered, "but it must be done. But, Arthur, I love you. I have told you that, and I am not ashamed of it. I shall never love any one else. It is not possible."
"I know it. I know, too, that your heart will always be mine, but, as the world sees it, your father is right. I am nothing. I have no right to a wife—above all, to one such as you. I feel that I have a power within me, the power to do things which the world would call good, but there is no chance. I suppose that the chance will come some day—when it is too late."