"Are you afraid to speak to me?" she asked, pleadingly. "Surely I have said nothing to anger you."
"No, it is not that," I returned in confusion, not knowing how to express the cause of my hesitancy. "I am sorry, and—and I sympathize with you, but I hardly know how to explain."
She was looking at me through the darkness; I was able to distinguish the white outline of her uplifted face.
"I am sorry—yes," very slowly, "but perhaps not as you suppose. It is hard to think of him as dead—killed so suddenly, without opportunity to think, or make any preparation. He—he was my husband under the law. That was all; he was no more. I do not believe I ever loved him—my marriage was but the adventure of a romantic girl; but if I once did, his subsequent abuse of me, his life of dissipation, obliterated long since every recollection of that love. He is to me scarcely more than a name, an unhappy memory. I told you that frankly when I believed him still alive. We were friends then, you and I, and I cannot conceive why his death should sever our friendship."
"Nor has it," I interposed instantly. "It was not indifference which silenced me. Rather it was the very strength of my feeling toward you. I was fearful of saying too much, of being too precipitate."
"You imagine I would fail to value your friendship at such a time?"
"Don't," I burst forth impetuously; "you talk of friendship when all my hope centers about another term. Surely you understand. I am a man sorely tempted, and dare not yield to temptation."
She drew her hand away from my clasp, yet the very movement seemed to express regret.
"You speak strangely."
"No, I do not; the words have been wrung from me. I am in no way ashamed, although I realize this is neither the time nor the place. Remember you have been under my protection ever since that night we met first on the streets; you are alone here with me now, but still under my protection. I cannot take advantage of your helpless condition, your utter loneliness. If I did I should never again be worthy of the name gentleman."