"Do you ask?" she said. The amazement in the wide eyes had deepened to a look of rapture. "Love him?" she said; "better than all the world beside." The girl was lifted out of herself. "You are to be my brother, Hugh, and I need not fear to speak so." She swung her bonnet on her arm, just to preserve composure by some distracting exercise. Hugh Ritson stopped, and his face softened. It was a perplexing smile that sat on his features. While he had talked with Greta there had run through his mind, as a painful undertone, the thought of Mercy Fisher. He had now dismissed the last of his qualms respecting her. To be tied down for life to a mindless piece of physical prettiness--what man of brains could bear it? He had yielded to a natural impulse--true! That moment of temptation threatened painful consequences--still true! What then? Nothing! Was the dead fruit to hang about his neck forever? Tut!--all natural law was against it. Had he not said that he was above prejudice? So was he above the maudlin sentiment of the "great lovers of noble histories." The sophistry grew apace with Greta's beautiful countenance before him. Catching at her last word, he said: "Your brother--yes. But did you never guess that I could have wished another name?" The look of amazement returned to her eyes; he saw it and went on: "Is it possible that you have not read my secret?" "What secret?" she said in a half-smothered voice. "Greta, if your love had been great love, you must have read my secret just as I have read yours." In a low tone he continued: "Long ago I knew that you loved, or thought you loved, my brother. I saw it before he had seen it--before you had realized it." The red glow colored her cheeks more deeply than before. She had stopped, and he was tramping nervously backward and forward. "Greta," he said again, and he fixed his eyes entreatingly upon her, "what is the love that scarcely knows itself?--that is the love with which you love my brother. And what is the tame, timid passion of a man of no mind?--that is the love which he offers you. What is your love for him, or his for you?--what is it, can it be? Love is not love unless it is the love of true minds. That was said long ago, Greta, and how true it is!" He went on quickly, in a tone of dull irritation: "All other love is no better than lust. Greta, I understand you. It is not for a rude man like my brother to do so." Then in an eager voice he said: "Dearest, I bring you a love undreamed of among these country boors." "Country boors!" she repeated in a half-stifled whisper. He did not hear her. His vehement eyes swam, and he was dizzy. "Greta, dearest, I said there has been little in my life to sweeten it. Yet I am a man made to love and to be loved. My love for you has been mute for months; but it can be mute no longer. Perhaps I have had my own impediment, apart from our love for Paul. But that is all over now."