"Let me say this, then," said Leicester. "Almost ever since the first time I saw you I have repented of the whole business. It has haunted me night and day. When I came to know you, and to realise how noble and true you were, I scorned, I loathed myself. I would have given anything to have undone what had been done. I dared not tell you, for I feared you would drive me from your presence. No man honours a woman more than I honour you, no man believes in a woman's nobility and honour more than I believe in yours. As I said, as soon as I saw you I loathed what had taken place, for I loved you."
"You mean," said Olive, "that you no longer came here because of your desire to win this wager, but——"
"Because I loved you," said Leicester eagerly. He forgot the presence of Winfield, and John Castlemaine. Only he and Olive were together, the others did not exist. "Yes, that is true, I came only for you. More than once I was tempted to tell you everything; but I was a coward—I was afraid. I had learnt that you were a proud woman, and I felt sure that if I told you, you would drive me from your presence. And I could not bear the thought of it, Olive. You are everything to me, life, hope, heaven! You know you are—yes, you know it. As for the other business, I hated it, as I hated myself when I thought of it. My great desire was to drive it from my mind. Surely you believe this, Olive—you must! Yes, I deserve all you have said—all and more; but now that you know the truth, now that you know what was begun in ghastly farce has ended in terrible reality, now you know that all my life is bound up in you, you only, you will forgive, will you not?"
Olive Castlemaine never took her eyes from him as he spoke, she seemed to be trying to read his inmost thoughts. Once or twice her face softened as he spoke, as though she wanted to yield to his pleading, but when he had finished she hesitated.
"This is true?" she said quietly. "Every word is true, is it not?"
"By all I hold sacred it is true," he cried. "I had not known you a week before I loathed the business, and cast it from me as I would cast a serpent from me. I thought of you only, because I loved you more than ever man loved woman, because the very thought of life was unbearable without you."
"Then there is another question I would ask you," she said.