“I know that your father was a gambler,” he answered. “Ah! what a life of worry and privation yours must have been, dearest. Yet you told me nothing of it!”
She looked at him, but her gaze wavered beneath his.
“I told you nothing because I feared that you would not choose the daughter of an adventurer for a wife,” she faltered.
“It would have made no difference,” he assured her. “I loved you.”
“Yes,” she sighed; “but there is a natural prejudice against women who have lived in the undesirable set that I have.”
“Quite so,” he admitted. “Nevertheless, knowing how pure and noble you are, dearest, this fact does not trouble me in the least. I am still ready, nay, anxious, to make you my wife.”
She shook her head gravely. Her hand holding her sunshade trembled as she retraced the semicircle in the dust.
“No,” she exclaimed at last. “If you would be generous, George, leave me and return to London. In future I must bear my burden myself; therefore, it is best that I should begin now. To remain here is useless, for each time I see you only increases my sadness; each time we meet brings back to me all the memories I am striving so hard to forget.”
“But I cannot leave you, Liane,” he declared decisively. “You shall not throw yourself helplessly into the hands of this unscrupulous man without my making some effort to save you.”
“It is beyond your power—entirely beyond your power,” she cried, dejectedly. “I would rather kill myself than marry him; yet I am compelled to obey his will, for if I took my life in order to escape, others must bear the penalty which I feared to face. No, if you love me you will depart, and leave me to bear my sorrow alone.”