"Why? Why? Why?"
"Because it is my place, Coira!" said he. "Because I cannot live away from you. Because we belong together."
The girl struggled weakly and pushed against him. Once more he heard whispering words and made out that she tried to say:
"Go back to her! Go back to her! You belong there!"
But at that he laughed aloud.
"I thought so, too," said he, "but she thinks otherwise. She'll have none of me, Coira. It's Richard Hartley now. Coira, can you love a jilted man? I've been jilted--thrown over--dismissed."
Her head came up in a flash and she stared at him, suddenly rigid and tense in his arms.
"Is that true?" she demanded.
"Yes, my love!" said he.
And she began to weep, with long, comfortable sobs, her face hidden in the hollow of his shoulder. On one other occasion she had wept before him, and he had been horribly embarrassed, but he bore this present tempest without, as it were, winking. He gloried in it. He tried to say so. He tried to whisper to her, his lips pressed close to the ear that was nearest them, but he found that he had no speech. Words would not come to his tongue; it trembled and faltered and was still for sheer inadequacy.