“And yet you didn’t,” she said reproachfully, studying him keenly and furtively, with her head bowed as if in grief for the memory of her father.
“How could I without hypocrisy? The Judge and I had been uncompromising enemies. Could I tear my heart open and let the vulgar world see the deep secret of my love for you?”
“You loved me then?” she broke in with surprise.
“From the moment you crossed this old hall the night I met you.”
Loved me when you refused to answer my appeal in person the day I wrote you?”
“I refused because I loved you.”
She looked at him a moment with a feeling of sudden fear. For the first time she realised with a shock that her imperious will to master his life was not the only force at work. The shadowy figure of Fate stood grim and silent before her.
“The man who wins my heart,” she said firmly, “can hold no reservations—he must be all mine, body and soul. He asks as much of me. I demand the same. Are you ready to place your life in my hands as I am asked to place mine in yours?”
“Without reservation,” he answered.
“I must be frank with you,” she said, turning her eyes appealingly on him. “Since the awful night I saw my father sitting dead in that chair with those masked figures, white, silent and terrible behind me, I have had a morbid curiosity mingled with terror for everything and everyone connected with the Klan. I have heard that you are a member?”