With a great effort she looked straight at him. "Yes," she said with steady voice, and no physical flinching. "I have ceased to love you. I searched into my heart before it was too late, and I found my affections had gone to another."
A flash of understanding seemed to come to him. "Mr. Shanner!" he exclaimed.
She averted her eyes. "He was my friend before I knew you," she pleaded, as if driven to defence.
"I see now you are perfectly serious," he murmured, hurt at last, and firmly believing her. "Does love come and go in women with such momentary capriciousness?"
"Perhaps," she said with a weird dreaminess. "It comes and goes like the blossoming of a flower in the sunlight—beautiful for the day or two it lives. My love for you is dead. I should not be happy with you, so why make the pretence? I should not ask you to forgive me, only I am not worth your remembrance for any reason. Let us shake hands and part not too bitterly."
He stood silent, his head bowed. There was no thought in his mind, only a sense of shame and of poignant regret.
"Believe me, it is for the best," she resumed, trying to smile. "And be assured, the guilty party alone shall be condemned, should the world discuss us!" She held out her hand. He took it and held it gently, in sign that he bore her no ill-will.