"No, yes—I don't really know. And what you said is true, is it not—you don't love me?"
"You were very cruel," I said. "You knew why I came here—knew that the doctor had written my death-warrant before I came. It is nearly a year since I came here, and a year was all Dr. Rhomboid gave me to live. To-day I feel as though the doctor's prophecy will be fulfilled."
"That you will die before the year is out?" she almost gasped.
"Yes," I said. "That was why it was cruel of you to seek to play with a dying man's heart. But you didn't succeed; you fascinated, you almost made me love you. If you had done so, you would have added mockery to mockery. But I never loved you, I only loved the woman you were meant to be, the woman you ought to be."
I saw anger, astonishment, and yearning, besides a hundred other things for which I could find no words, in her eyes as I spoke. For a moment she seemed to be struggling to find some answer to give me. Then she burst out angrily, almost furiously:
"You are blind—blind—blind!"
"Blind to what?" I asked. "You care nothing for me, and you know it. You need not tell me so; I can see it in your eyes. You have won the love of other men only to discard it."
"Mr. Erskine," she said, "do you remember our first conversation?"
"The one when I first dined at your house?" I asked.
"No, the one when we met in the field yonder. It is nearly a year ago."