"If we never were true to each other, let us be so now," he went on. "It is too solemn a moment for equivocation: it is no time for us to pretend ignorance of our mutual love."
It was indeed no time for equivocation or for doubt. Sara rose superior to it. A reticence that might have been observed at another time was forgotten now in her emotion and pain.
"I have not been faithless: perhaps I never shall be. But we can never be more to each other than we are now. The dishonour clings to me, and always will cling."
"Sara! don't I say that I will forget it?"
"No; I would never bring the possibility of--of--of--I think you do not understand," she broke off, lifting her white face to his. "It was not only dishonour."
"What else?"
"Crime." A change passed over his countenance as he raised his head, which had been bent to catch the word. Soon it brightened again. Never perhaps had his besetting sin been so quiescent: but pride, even such pride as Oswald Cray's, is a less strong passion than love.
"It was not your crime, Sara. And it has passed away."
"It has not passed."
"Not passed!"