It hit him.
"Poor Queenie," he said, "poor child."
"Yes—poor Queenie!" Her eyes blazed in the moonlight. "To think that you dared to treat me like——"
"Beth!" he interrupted, "I won't permit it. I told you to-day I loved you. That makes things right. You love me, and that makes them sacred. I'd do all I've done over again—all of it—Queenie and the rest! I'm not ashamed, nor sorry for anything I've done. I love you—I say—I love you. That's what I've never done before—and never said I did—and that's what makes things right!"
Beth was confused by what he said—confused in her judgment, her emotions. Weakly she clung to her argument.
"You haven't any right—it isn't true when you say I love you. I don't! I won't! You can't deny that woman died of a broken heart for you!"
"I don't deny anything about her," he said. "I tried to be her friend. God knows she needed friends. She was only a child, a pretty child. I'm sorry. I've always been sorry. She knew I was only a friend."
She felt he was honest. She knew he was wrung—suffering, but not in his conscience. Yet what was she to think? She had heard it all—all of Queenie's story.
"You kissed her," she said, and red flamed up in her cheeks.
"It was all she asked," he answered simply. "She was dying."