Ann had been listening with bent head. Now she lifted it, and her eyes held a terrible questioning. Behind the questioning lay terror—the terror of one who sees a heaven regained suddenly barred away.
“Then he ... you....” She could not even formulate the aching demand of her whole soul and body. But Cara understood. Love had taught her all there was to know of love.
“Eliot’s love for me died ten years ago,” she said simply.
“And yours?” asked Ann painfully. “Not yours. Or you wouldn’t—you couldn’t—have done this—for him.”
For an instant Cara closed her eyes. Then she spoke, with white lips, but with a quiet, steadfast decision that carried absolute conviction.
“I know what you are thinking,” she said. “But you are wrong—quite wrong. There is nothing left between Eliot Coventry and me—nothing—except remembrance. And for the sake of that remembrance—for the sake of what was, though it has been, dead these many years—I have done what I have done.”
The question died out of Ann’s eyes—answered once and for ever, and Cara stifled a sigh of relief as she watched the faint colour steal back into the girl’s cheeks.
“I don’t know how I could have thought you still cared,” said Ann presently. “It was silly of me—when you are going to marry Robin.”
“Yes. Robin and I are going to start a new life together. He knows—what happened—years ago. And he understands. I hope”—forcing herself to speak more lightly—“I hope he won’t be too shocked at my flight to the yacht last night to marry me after all!”
Ann laughed.