“There is a great deal more to be said!” he cried. “Impossible! How is it impossible? Last night it would have been possible, but to-day—— You are playing with me, Katherine! Why should it be impossible to-day?”
“Not from anything in you, Dr. Burnet,” she said; “from something in myself.”
“From what in yourself? Katherine, I tell you you are playing with me! I deserve better at your hands.”
“You deserve—everything!” she cried, “and I—I deserve nothing but that you should scorn me. But it is not my fault. I have found out. I have had a long time to think; I have seen things in a new light. Oh, accept what I say! It is impossible—impossible!”
“Yet it was possible yesterday, and it may be possible to-morrow?”
“No, never again!” she said.
“Do you know,” said the doctor stonily, “that you have led me on, that you have given me encouragement, that you have given me almost a certainty?—and now to cast me off, without sense, without reason——”
The man’s lip quivered under the sting of this disappointment and mortification. He began not to know what he was saying.
“Let us not say any more—oh, let us not say any more! That was unkind that you said. I could give you no certainty, for I had none; and to-day—I know that it is impossible! Dr. Burnet, I cannot say any more.”
“But, Miss Tredgold,” he cried in his rage, “there is a great deal more to be said! I have a right to an explanation! I have a right to—— Good heavens, do you mean that nothing is to come of it after all?” he cried.