"I have deceived myself," he sighs, inly. "I thought she was learning to love me."
"Lady Vera, I have been too hopeful," he says, manfully. "I have been thinking of love while you dreamed only of friendship. But now that you know my heart, will you not suffer me to woo you for my bride? I love you so dearly I am sure I could make you happy."
Ah! the fathomless pain that comes into the dark eyes into which he gazes so tenderly. He cannot understand it.
"I shall never marry, Captain Lockhart," she answers, in a low, pained voice. "There is no use to woo me. I can never be yours."
"Never!" he echoes, with despair in his voice.
"I shall never marry anyone," she repeats, mournfully.
He looks at her with all his passionate heart in his eyes.
"Never is a terrible word, Lady Vera," he answers sadly. "Only think how I love you. I have never loved anyone before in all my life, and I shall never love anyone again. You are my first and last love. Only think how terrible it is, how cruelly hard, for me to give up the hopes of winning you for my own. You are so beautiful and noble, my dark-eyed love. I have dreamed of kissing your small, white hands, your fair, white brow, your golden hair, even your beautiful, crimson lips. I had thought to win you for my very own, and now you strike dead every hope by that cruel word, never. Oh, my darling, you are too young to say you will never wed. What can you know of the needs of your own heart? Let me teach you to love me."
"Ah, if he only knew the fatal truth," the tortured young heart moans to itself, in the silence of its great despair. "If he knew that I am already bound by a tie that I hate and loathe."
But she speaks no word, only to look up at him with pained, dark eyes, and reiterate: