“Part from you, Ella!” I cried. “Never—never. You must be mad. While you breathe and live I shall remain near you as your friend, your protector, nay, your lover—the man who loves you better than his own life!” I declared, taking her small hand and raising it reverently to my lips. “It is cruel of you, darling, to suggest us parting.”
“No, it is the more merciful to both of us. We must part—so the sooner the better.”
“You told me this on that never-to-be-forgotten night in London,” I said reproachfully. “Therefore I cannot think that you are now in earnest.”
“I am, Godfrey,” she declared quickly. “I do not deny to you that I love you, but love between us is debarred. I am unhappy—ah! God alone knows what trials I have borne—what horrors have been mine to witness—and now to fill the cup of my grief I have met you only to find that you still love me,” she cried hoarsely, in a voice broken by emotion.
I held her trembling hand, and again kissed her cold, hard lips.
But she drew herself from me firmly, saying in a low, broken voice, full of pathos:—
“No, Godfrey. Let us say good-night here. Let both of us go our own way, as we have done before; both of us, however, now confident in each other’s love, even though our lives lie far apart. Remember me only as an unhappy woman who, through no fault of her own, is prevented from becoming your wife. Think of me still as your Ella of the old sweet days, and I will remember you, my Godfrey—the—the man I love. I—”
But she could utter no further word, for she burst into a flood of bitter tears.