Wyndham rose, and lit a cigarette.
"Now, I'll leave you to yourself for five minutes," he announced. "It is getting late. But before we go for our ride this matter must be settled once for all." He laid both hands on the table and looked steadily into her face. "You are the most just-minded woman I know. Look all round the question before you decide. Try to realise a little what it will mean for me to give up all hope. In losing you, I lose everything. There can be no question of any one else for me. Take me or—leave me, I am yours for the rest of my life."
He turned away to save her from the necessity of answering, and walked to the far end of the verandah, leaving her alone with the strongest temptation she had yet experienced—the temptation to trample on her own imperious love, and to accept this man's selfless devotion in the hope that it might one day conquer and monopolise her heart.
Had marriage with Wyndham entailed immediate removal from the atmosphere of Theo Desmond, hesitancy might have ended in capitulation. But life-long intimacy with him, as the wife of his closest friend, was unthinkable for a moment; and if by the wildest possibility Paul should ever suspect the truth——!
She shuddered and glanced in his direction.
"Major Wyndham," she said softly.
He hastened back to her at once. But one look at her face sufficed. The eagerness faded from his eyes, leaving them cold as a winter sky after sunset.
"It was wrong of me to keep you in suspense even for a few minutes," she said, her gaze riveted on the table. "Please forgive me that I am driven to hurt you so, and please believe that I do realise what I am losing——"
"The loss is—not yours," he said on a note of restrained quietness: and in the stillness that ensued, the impatient horses could be heard champing their bits.