“What do you mean by the woman who loves me?” he asked her presently, after a pause. “I don’t quite follow you. Who does me the great honour of entertaining any affection for me?”
“Who? Can you really ask that?” she said. “Ask yourself?”
“I have asked myself,” he laughed, rather uneasily, meeting her glance and wavering beneath it.
“Ah! you will not admit the truth, I see,” she remarked, raising her finger in shy reproof.
“Of what?”
“That you are beloved—that you are the lover of Maud Petrovitch!”
“Maud Petrovitch!” he gasped. “You know her? Tell me,” he cried quickly.
“I have told you,” she answered. “I have stirred your memory of a fact which you have apparently forgotten, Mr Rolfe.”
“Forgotten—forgotten Maud!” he exclaimed. “I have never for a moment forgotten her. She is lost to me—and you know it. Tell me the truth. Where is she? Where can I see her?”
But the girl only shook her head slowly in sadness. Over her bright, merry face had fallen a sudden gloom, a look of deep regret and dark despair.