“I should never have let you speak.”
Her words came steadily, but painfully. And when I raised my eyes she met them bravely.
“You must have seen,” I cried. “These years I have loved you, nor could I have hidden it if I had wished. But I have little—to offer you,” I went on cruelly, for I knew not what I said; “you who may have English lands and titles for the consenting. I was a fool.”
Her tears started again. And at sight of them I was seized with such remorse that I could have bitten my tongue in two.
“Forgive me, Dorothy, if you can,” I implored. “I did not mean it. Nor did I presume to think you loved me. I have adored,—I shall be content to adore from far below. And I stayed,—I stayed that I might save you if a danger threatened.”
“Danger!” she exclaimed, catching her breath.
“I will come to the point,” I said. “I stayed to save you from the Duke of Chartersea.”
She grasped the balcony rail, and I think would have fallen but for my arm. Then she straightened, and only the quiver of her lip marked the effort.
“To save me from the Duke of Chartersea?” she said, so coldly that my conviction was shaken. “Explain yourself, sir.”
“You cannot love him!” I cried, amazed.