He caught her hands; he drew her from the gate into the bright moonlight. He could not let her go without a word of explanation; the cruelty of visiting upon her her father's sin was very present to him then.
"Are we to part thus for ever, Sara?"
Surely that question was cruel! It was not she who had instituted the parting; it was himself. She did not so much as know its cause.
"May we not meet once in a way, as friends?" he continued. "I dare not ask for more now."
That he loved her still was all too evident. And Sara took courage to gasp forth a question. In these moments of agitation the cold conventionalities of the world are sometimes set aside.
"What has been the matter? How have we offended you?"
"You have not offended me," he answered, his agitation almost irrepressible. "I love you more than I ever did; this one moment of meeting has proved it to me. I could lay down my life for you, Sara; I could sacrifice all, save honour, for you. And you? You have not changed?--you love me still?"
"Yes," she gasped, unable to deny the truth, too miserable to care to suppress it.
"And yet we must part! we must go forth on our separate paths, striving to forget. But when our lives shall end, Sara, we shall neither of us have loved another as we love now."
Her very heart seemed to shiver; the fiat was all too plainly expressed. But she stood there quietly, waiting for more, her hand in his.