“Yes, horrible!” I echoed. “Why don’t you let me stand before that thief and accuse him?”
“And reveal my secret to my father. Never—never! I would die rather than he should know.” And her face grew pale and hard, and her small hand trembling in mine.
“Ella!” I cried, kissing her passionately on her cold white lips. “How can I save you? How can I gain you for my own? This awful suspense is killing me.”
“Godfrey,” she answered, in a low, distinct voice, “we can never be man and wife—impossible, why therefore let us discuss it further? We love each other with a fond true love, it is true, fonder than man and woman ever loved before, yet both of us are longing for the unattainable,” she sighed. “My future, alas! is not in my own hands.”
“Ah! yes!” I cried in despair. “I see it all! Your fear prevents you from allowing me to unmask this man—you fear that your father should learn your secret!”
“I fear that you, too, should learn it—that instead of loving me,” she said, with a wild look in her splendid eyes, “you would hate me!”