"Because you do not care for me?"
"Not in that way, Marius," she said gently.
He put his hand to his brow in a dazed way.
"Then it is over, impossible?"
"Yes." Miss Chressham was still not looking at him. "And I am sorry, oh, very sorry!"
"Is there not a chance, some day?" His tone was piteously incredulous.
But Susannah, strengthened by an intense and hidden feeling, answered with a finality calm to cruelty.
"No, I could never, Marius; I beg of you not to speak of this again. If I have hurt you I am grieved; but it is impossible."
Silence followed, and now she ventured to look at him; he stood quite still, frowning, with downcast eyes; the fire and flash had died from his demeanour, which was that of a man utterly humiliated. Susannah sickened at herself for having had to repulse him, what he had offered was something she might have been proud to accept, and a sense of guilt stole into her heart.
Marius was speaking, quietly.