“No! no!” she cried, snatching her hand away and receding from me. “No, Frank, I cannot—I will not lie to you.”
“Then can you never love me—never?” I cried despairingly.
“Never,” she answered hoarsely, and her answer struck deep into my heart. “I have sinned—sinned before God and before man—and love no longer knows a place in my heart,” and her fine head was bowed before me.
“Sinned!” I gasped. “What do you mean?”
“I am as a social leper,” she panted, raising her head and looking at me with wild, unnatural gaze. “If you knew the dark and awful truth you would shun me rather than kiss my hand. Yet you say you love me—you! who would have so great a cause to hate me if you knew the ghastly truth!”
“But,” I cried, wondering at these strange words, and with my suspicions again aroused, “I do love you, nevertheless, Eva. I shall always love you, I swear it, for my very life is yours.”
“Your life!” she echoed in a weird, harsh voice, as she stood, pale-faced, swaying before me, her hands clasped to her breast, her lips cold and white. “Yes,” she said, in a strange, half-hysterical tone. “Yes, it is true, too true, alas! that your future is in my hands. Only by a miracle have you come back to life, a grim shadow of a crime to taunt, to defy, to denounce. Ah! Frank, you do not know the terrible truth; you will never know—never!”
I was bewildered. Horror possessed me. The darkness of an irreversible fact spread over her and made her terrible to me. All must be given up. Conscience pronounced this dread decree and multiplied the pain a thousand times.
Destiny had once more taken me by the elbow.