His courage failed him for the moment, and it seemed as if his reason was forsaking him.
After a while he went on:
“All our former hopes are crushed and destroyed. Oh, why were we ever permitted to love each other as we have done, only to suffer thus? But, Editha, I cannot—I do not feel that I ought to go back and leave you here with him. Will you come with me to Wycliffe and share my home—your brother’s home?”
She put him away from her with a gesture of despair.
A cry of bitterness rang through the room, and then, as if all power of self-control had deserted her, she cried out:
“No, no, NO! Earle, how can you torture me with such a proposal? Go away—hide from me—put the sea between us, until—until I can learn to love you less.”
And the poor, tired, almost bursting heart found relief in a flood of scalding tears.
Earle was glad to see her weep, though every word had been fresh torture to him. He did not check her, but only knelt by her, gently smoothing her shining hair, and wishing he could have borne all this great grief alone.
How could he bear to leave her? How could he put the ocean between them! How could he bear to let long years go by and not look upon her face, perhaps never see her again? She would not be happy with her father, he knew, after what she had learned to-day. She had no other friends to whom to go, and what would become of her?
She repelled the idea of making Wycliffe her home, where she would be obliged to see him every day, and strive to conquer the love which now she had no right to give him. And his own heart told him that it would be a burden too heavy for either of them to bear.