"And that barrier, Vera, will it always stand?" he asks.
"Always, unless death should remove it," she answers, with a shudder; and with a moan, she continues: "Once I believed that death had already stricken it from my path, and I was so happy, Philip—happy in your love and mine. But the grim specter of the past has risen to haunt me. I can never be your wife. I can never know one moment's happiness in life again."
"She is ill and desperate," Colonel Lockhart tells himself, uneasily. "Surely things cannot be so bad as she represents. She exaggerates her trouble. When I come to know the truth I shall find that it is some simple thing that her girlish fears have magnified a hundredfold. I must not let her drive me away from her. I may be of service to her in her trouble."
Aloud he says, gently:
"Since I may no longer be your lover, Vera, you will let me be your friend?"
"Since you wish it, but you will change your mind soon," she answers, hopelessly.
"I think not," he answers, lifting her hand gently to his lips, and then she turns away, meeting Lady Clive upon the threshold coming in.
"Vera, my dear, how ill you look," she exclaims. "Has anything happened? Ah, Phil, are you there? What have you said to Vera? You are not having a lover's quarrel, I hope?"
He makes her no answer, but Vera, turning back, throws her arms around her friend's neck, and lifts her pale, beseeching face.
"I will tell you what has happened, Lady Clive," she answers. "I have broken my engagement with Philip."