"Because," she whispered, "dad's roof was ours. For his honour, if not for our own, we could not affront the world, dear.... Not that I don't love you enough!" she added almost fiercely. "I do love you enough! I don't care whether you know it. Nothing would matter—if there were no other way—and if I were free to take the only way that offered. Do you suppose I'd hesitate if it lay between taking that way and losing you?"
She turned and began to pace the path excitedly, cheeks flushed and hands clenching and unclenching.
"What do I care about myself!" she said. She snapped her fingers: "I don't care that, Jim, when your happiness is at stake! I'd go to you, go with you, love you, face the world undaunted. I care nothing about myself. I know myself! What am I? You know!"
She came up close to him, her face afire, her grey eyes brilliant.
"You know what I am," she repeated. "You and dad did everything to make me like yourselves. You took me out of the gutter——"
"Steve!"
"You took me out of the gutter!" she repeated excitedly. "You cleaned the filth from me, gave me shelter, love;—you educated me, made me possible, strove to eradicate the unworthy instincts and inclinations which I might have inherited. My aunt told me. I know what dad did for me! Why shouldn't I adore the memory of your father? Why shouldn't I love his son? I do. I always have. I didn't dream that you ever could offer me a greater love. But when I understood that it was true—when I realized that it was really love, then I stepped into your arms because you held them out to me—because you were your father's son whom I had loved passionately all my life in one way, and was willing to learn to love in any way you asked of me—Jim!—my brother—my lover——"
She flung herself into his arms, choking, clinging to him, struggling to control her voice:
"I am nothing—I am nothing," she sobbed passionately. "Why should not all my gratitude and loyalty be for your father's son? What is so terrible to me is that I can't give myself! That I can't throw myself at your feet for life. To marry you would be too heavenly wonderful! Or, to snap my fingers in the world's face for your sake—dearest—that would be so little to do for you—so easy.
"But I can't. Your father—dad—would know it. And then the world would blame him for ever harbouring a gutter-waif——"