"I shall not attempt to deceive you," she said, with a slow impressiveness instantly carrying conviction. "This has already progressed so far that I now owe you complete frankness. Donald Brant, now and always, living or dead, married or single, wherever life may take us, I shall love you."
Their eyes were meeting, but she held up her hand to restrain him from the one step forward.
"No, no; I have confessed the truth; I have opened freely to you the great secret of my heart. With it you must be content to leave me. There is nothing more that I can give you, absolutely nothing. I can never be your wife; I hope, for your sake and mine, that we never meet again."
She did not break down, or hesitate in the utterance of these words, although there was a piteous tremble on her lips, a pathetic appeal in her eyes. Brant stood like a statue, his face grown white. He did not in the least doubt her full meaning of renunciation.
"You will, at least, tell me why?" It was all that would come to his dry lips.
She sank back upon the sofa, as though the strength had suddenly deserted her body, her eyes shaded by an uplifted hand.
"I cannot tell you. I have no words, no courage. You will learn some day from others, and be thankful that I loved you well enough to resist temptation. But the reason cannot come to you from my lips."
He leaned forward, half kneeling at her feet, and she permitted him to clasp her hand within both his own. "Tell me, at least, this—is it some one else? Is it Hampton?"
She smiled at him through a mist of tears, a smile the sad sweetness of which he would never forget. "In the sense you mean, no. No living man stands between us, not even Bob Hampton."
"Does he know why this cannot be?"