“I dare not!”
“Dare not! What do you fear?” I demanded in surprise, instantly releasing her hand.
“The consequences would be fatal to our love,” she gasped. Then, after a pause, she clutched my arm, and, burying her beautiful face upon my shoulder, sobbed bitterly.
“Our love!” I echoed contemptuously. Notwithstanding the fierceness of my anger, I smoothed her dark gold hair, and presently, when she grew a trifle calmer, endeavoured to discover the meaning of her strange, enigmatical words.
“You cannot know—you will never know—how dearly I have loved you, Geoffrey,” she cried, in answer to my eager questions. “Neither will you ever know how much I have suffered, how hard I have striven for your sake.”
“For my sake! Yet you admit having allowed Dudley Ogle to utter words that I alone had a right to utter!”
“Yes, I admit all,” she said, with a tragic touch of sorrow in her strained voice. “I deny nothing.”
“And you come to me asking forgiveness, believing that I can again trust you without hearing any explanation of your recent strange conduct with Beck, as well as with Dudley! I think you must regard me, Ella, as a weak, impressionable fool,” I added, with bitter sarcasm.
“No, I do not,” she cried quickly. “I appeal to your generosity towards a woman. I have been compelled to act against my own inclinations, compelled, in order to outwit my enemies, to act a part despicable and revolting. I can now only ask forgiveness,” and, throwing herself suddenly upon her knees before me, she cried, “See! Geoffrey, I crave one grain of pity from you, my old friend, the only man I have loved!”
“No, Ella,” I answered, quickly withdrawing my hand that she was pressing to her hot, fevered lips. “I may pity you, but forgive you never.”