He felt tears scalding his eyes. Suddenly he caught her hands and broken words leaped from his lips.
"What a wonderful soul you are!—I can't speak my thanks, but in my heart—"
She jerked her hands away and drew back. "Don't!" she gasped. "Don't!"
He hated himself for the suffering he was causing her—for his helplessness to thank her, to say the thing in his heart.
She continued to stare up at him with the same quivering tensity. After a moment she asked in a dry whisper:
"And she loves you?"
"Yes."
A sharp moan escaped her. She put an unsteady hand out and caught her desk, and the edge of David's vision saw how the fingers clenched the wood.
"I knew it—from the way she acted," she said mechanically.
For several moments more she looked up at him, her face as pale as death. Then she turned and, thoughtless of her belongings, walked toward the door, a thin, unsteady figure. As she reached for the knob he sprang across the room with a cry and caught her outstretched hand.