"It was duty, not I, that sent him away, he owns that," returned Dora, sighing, but her conscience smote her as she uttered this little fib.
Had he not striven to show her that her motives of duty had been overstrained and false in his eyes? "If you send me away you may find it difficult to recall me, Dora," he had said to her. Was not that asserting his right to be free?
"I went too far that time," she went on, "and made him angry and bitter; but that would not have mattered if you had not come between us."
"I—I have done nothing. What do you mean?"
"He was angry with me, and then he came to you; and, to be sure, how can he help seeing that you care for him after all you have done?"
"Hush! I will not hear another word; you are going too far. How dare you?" exclaimed Queenie passionately, moved to sudden anger at this ungenerous thrust. "You have no right to come here and say these things to me."
"No right!" returned Dora meekly; she had quailed a little before the brown fire of Queenie's eyes. "Have I no right when I have known and cared for him all my life? I am nearly eight-and-twenty now, and I was not more than sixteen—Flo's age—when this was first thought of between us; why, we had been meant for each other ever since we were children, and yet, after twelve years of thorough understanding, you say I have no right to speak!"
"I—I do not understand," began Queenie vaguely, and her cheek turned very white.
What if all this were true, and he had grown weary of this youthful entanglement? Might it not be possible that he and Dora had grown apart, that the tie had loosened between them, and that, in reality, his second love was the true one? Alas! the instincts of her own pure heart verified this view of the case; she understood him so thoroughly, she was so sure of his integrity, but what proof or evidence of her belief could she offer Dora? He had never spoken to her, his looks indeed had betrayed his secret, and hitherto their eloquence had sufficed her; but, at a crisis like this, the sense of his silence was dreadful; her faith was involuntarily built up on no foundation. After all Dora was right, and she had no claim to him.
"I was sure you did not understand," returned Dora, watching her, and speaking with the utmost gentleness. "You are too generous to take him from me, who have loved him all these years. I knew I had only to speak to you and all would be right between us."