"Are you capable of loving me?"
"Duane, you must not ask me that!"
"Tell me!"
But she pushed him back, and they faced each other, her hands remaining on his shoulders. She strove piteously to endure his gaze, flinched, strove to push him from her again—but the slender hands lay limply against him. So they remained, her hands at intervals nervously tightening and relaxing on his shoulders, her tearful breath coming faster, the dark eyes closing, opening, turning from him, toward him, searching, now in his soul, now in her own, her self-command slipping from her.
"It is cowardly in me—if I do it," she said in the ghost of a voice.
"Do what?"
"Let you risk—what I m-might become."
"You little saint!"
"Some saints were depraved at first—weren't they?" she said without a smile. "Oh, Duane, Duane, to think I could ever be here speaking to you about—about the horror that has happened to me—looking into your face and giving up my dreadful secret to you—laying my very soul naked before you! How can I look at you——"
"Because I love you. Now give me the right to your lips and heart!"