"You can't love me," she repeated; "when did you begin? You didn't love me yesterday, you know—nor the day before."
"Why do you suppose I went away the day after the ghost?" he asked her slowly.
"Because you had business, or you were tired of my very undesirable company."
"Put it as you like! Do you explain my recent absences in the same way?"
"Oh, I can't explain you!" She raised her shoulders, but her face trembled. "I never tried."
"Let me show you how. I went because you were here."
"And you were afraid—that you might love me? Was it—such a hard fate?"
She turned her head away.
"What have I to offer you?" he said passionately; "poverty—an elderly lover—a life uncongenial to you."
She slipped a hand nearer to him, but her face clouded a little.
"It's the very strangest thing in the world," she said deliberately, "that we should love each other. What can it mean? I hated you when I came, and meant to hate you. And"—she sat up and spoke with an emphasis that brought the colour back into her face—"I can never, never be a Catholic."