Would it be maidenly? Would it be proper?
“Editha, have I been deceived all this while? Have I been persecuting you with my attentions, while you loved another?” he cried, in consternation, as he marked that startled flush, and intuitively knew its cause.
She looked up into his white, pained face, and pitied him from the depths of her tender heart.
“Mr. Tressalia,” she said, with sudden resolution, “it is cruel to allow you to hope when there is no hope. I will make you my confidant. You are noble and good, and you will not betray my trust. What you have said—is true.”
Her voice was low, and sweet, and tremulous, as she confessed it, but her face was dyed with hottest blushes.
“You do love some one else?” he cried, in a hollow voice, his noble face growing gray and sharp with agony.
“Yes,” she whispered, “but only the exigency of the case would force me to confess it.”
And then she told him frankly all the story of her early regard for Earle Wayne—his misfortune and patient endurance for another’s crime—of his return, and of their mutual though unspoken affection for each other.
“Earle Wayne!” he repeated with a start. “Who is he? Where did he come from?” he demanded, with eager interest, as she spoke his name.
“I do not know. He came to my uncle when seventeen years of age. He was fatherless, motherless, and friendless; but he has proved himself, if not honored among men, to be stamped with Heaven’s nobility.”