"Why not?" asked Bruce, walking on as if disposed to argue it.
"Because I do not want to," said Rob, evidently not inclined to discussion.
"But you care for me," insisted Bruce.
"Do I? Well, I shall not very long if you bother me about such things," said Rob.
"I want you, Rob," said Bruce with a break in his voice that softened Rob a little.
"I wish you wouldn't; it is so unpleasant," she said.
"Rob, dear, from the first moment that I saw you I cared for you in a boyish way. And now that I am a man you have grown to be so much a part of every hope I have, every thought I think, every effort I make that to tear you out of my life would leave a crippled Bruce Rutherford forever. I don't mean to appeal to your pity, of course, but it's the simple truth that my future lies at your mercy. It's not going to be with me as with Bartlemy. I don't mean that Bart wasn't in earnest and that Prue did not hurt him, but he has the artist nature, and he'll pull through. I'm a fellow of one idea, and it wouldn't be easy to uproot me and make me grow in new soil. Somehow, I can't imagine living without you, Rob. What's the use of my telling you all this, when you know me better than I know myself, when I've never had a secret from you in all these years of our fine friendship? You know what it will be if I have to try to limp along without you. You helped Hester with the Green Pasture's; why do you want to cripple me worse than that poor little chap you've got there is crippled? Can't you imagine what it means to me even to think of losing you, Rob?"
Bruce held out his hands with an appealing gesture, and Rob saw them, the strong well-shaped, true doctor's hands, tremble.
"Oh, don't Bruce," she begged faintly. It was harder than she had thought it would be, and all the courage and defiance with which she had set out had ebbed away.
"Then why, why are you treating me as you do?" demanded Bruce. "There isn't another fellow whom you know and would rather have—there's no Arthur Stanhope in the way of this Rutherford wooer. And I'm sure you love me, Rob, though you don't know it, or won't admit it."