Her hands lay still; the compulsion for avowal was confronting her at last. To hear this thing and sanction it by leaving him unenlightened would be a wrong that she dared not contemplate; and under the necessity for proclaiming that her sentiments could never affect the matter, she turned cold and damp. Twice she attempted the finality required, and twice her lips parted without sound.
"Dr. Kincaid——"
He raised his eyes to her, and the courage faded.
"Don't think," he said, "that I shall ever make you sorry for telling me that. You've simply removed a dread. I'm grateful to you."
"Oh," she murmured, in a suffocating voice, "it makes no difference. How am I to explain the—why don't you understand?"
"What is it I should understand?"
"You mustn't be grateful; you're mistaken. Never in the world, so long as we live! There was someone else; I——"
"Be open with me," he said sternly; "in common fairness, let us have clearness and truth! You just declared that you didn't care for anyone?"
"No," she gasped, "I did say that—I meant I didn't care. I don't—we neither care; he doesn't know if I am alive, but ... there used to be another man, and——"
"Oh, my God, you are going to tell me you are married?"