His heart was thumping up in his throat, almost choking him, and his hands were clenched in the pockets of his shabby tweed jacket.
The light in the center of the room fell full on his ugly face, cruelly revealing all its grimness and pallor, and the trembling tenderness of his mouth. He made no attempt to ignore her meaning. It was too great a moment for pretense.
She was so small, such a child, that his passionate love died down into something infinitely gentle as he spoke.
"Do you know what it means, Marie? Do you realize that you will break Miss Chester's heart, and ruin your husband's life? Do you know what everyone will say of you and me?"
She broke in feverishly.
"I don't mind what they say. I've never had any happiness, and I could be happy with you—I am always happy with you . . . Oh, I thought you loved me," she added with a broken little cry.
It seemed a long time before he answered, and then he said in a voice that was slow and labored with emotion:
"I love you as the sweetest and dearest woman I have ever met. I love you for your kind friendship to me, and because you did not shrink from my ugly face. I love you because you're as far above me in goodness and purity as the stars." He stopped with a hard breath before he went on again. "You've been my ideal of everything I hold sacred, and you are asking me to trample it all underfoot and drag it in the mud."
He broke off jaggedly, and Marie said in a whisper:
"If—if you love me like that, don't you know—can't you see—how happy we could be together?"