"Then you can give me no hope?" Doctor Franks asks sadly, and she shakes her head.
"You do not know how long I have loved you," he says, pleadingly. "Ever since I first saw you you have been the delight of my eyes and heart. But I have tried to be patient. I have respected your widowhood and your sorrow. But now, Reine, seeing you so utterly alone in the world, the time seemed come for me to speak. Are you sure—quite sure, dear, that you can never love me?"
The sound of the sea comes to them soft and sad; the wind sighs through the long grass above the quiet sleepers, whom the things of this world trouble no more. Tears rise into the dark eyes of the girl as she looks into the man's troubled face. It is no slight thing to a true woman to hold the great, throbbing pulse of a man's heart in the hollow of the hand.
She lifts to his the great, dewy, pain-filled eyes.
"I am so sorry," she falters; "but you must have seen how little I cared for you, for anyone, and that my heart was broken."
Before that grave and pathetic confession the man's passion is mute.
"And I have wounded you," he says, in self-condemnation. "Forgive me, Mrs. Charteris, I have heard of women who were faithful unto death. I did not know there were those who carried love beyond it."
She sighs wearily and rests her cheek against the cold marble cross.
"My heart is broken," she repeats sadly. "I shall never have any more room in my life for love and lovers."
"Nor friends?" he asks, pleadingly, and Reine impulsively holds out her hand.