“Then whom do you fear?” I asked, after a pause.
She shook her head. Only a low sob escaped her.
“May we not love in secret,” I suggested, “if it is really impossible to love openly?”
“No, no!” she said, lifting her white hand in protest. “We must not love. I tell you that it is all a dream impossible of realisation. To-day we must part. Leave me, and we will both forget this meeting.”
“But surely you will not deliberately wreck both our lives, Eva?” I cried, dismayed. “Your very words have betrayed that you really entertain some affection for me, although you deny it for reasons that are inexplicable. Why not be quite plain and straightforward, as I am?”
“I have been quite clear,” she answered. “I tell you that we can never love one another.”
“Why?”
“For a reason which some day ere long will be made plain to you,” she answered in a low voice, her pure countenance at that moment drawn and ashen pale. “In that day you will hate my very name, and yet will think kindly of my memory, because I have to-day refused to listen to you and have given you your freedom.”
“And yet you actually love me!” I exclaimed, bewildered at this strange allegation. “It is most extraordinary.”
“It may seem extraordinary,” she said in a voice that appeared to sound soft and afar, “but the truth is oft-times strange, especially when one is draining the cup of life to its very dregs.”