“It was in no way your fault; pray do not consider that I can ever blame you for the outcome.”
Her eyes were upon me; I could view her face in the starlight, and for the moment I utterly forgot the man who rested there between us.
“If you could only know,” I exclaimed eagerly, “how sincerely I long to serve you,—to atone in some small way for all the difficulty I have brought into your life; how my heart throbs to your presence as to that of no other living woman—”
She hushed my impetuous words with the gesture of a queen, and rose to her feet facing me. Under the stars our eyes looked into each other, and her face was very white.
“You must not,” she said firmly, and I thought she glanced down upon the motionless figure at her feet. “I have trusted you; do not cause me to regret it now.”
I bowed, humiliated to the very depths of my soul.
“Your rebuke is perfectly just,” I answered slowly. “God knows I shall never be guilty again. You will have faith in me?”
“Always, everywhere—whether it ever be our fate to meet again or not. But now you must go.”
“Go? And leave you here alone? Are you not afraid?”
“Afraid?” she looked about her into the darkness. “Of what? Surely you do not mean of Frank—of Major Brennan? And as to my being alone, our quarters are within a scant hundred yards from here, and a single cry will bring me aid in plenty. Hush! what was that?”