She did not respond, but sat down with drooping eyes. He paused, and there was an ominous silence. "You don't know what I suffered, or what I suffer still. You are very happy. I am a miserable man. Greta, do you know what it is to love without being loved? How can you know? It is torture beyond the gift of words--misery beyond the relief of tears. It is not jealousy; that is no more than a vulgar kind of envy. It is a nameless, measureless torment." He paused again. She did not speak. His voice grew tremulous. "I'm not one of the fools who think that the souls that are created for each other must needs come together--that destiny draws them from the uttermost parts of the earth--that, trifle as they will with their best hopes, fate is stronger than they are, and true to the pole-star of ultimate happiness. I know the world too well to believe nonsense like that. I know that every day, every hour, men and women are casting themselves away--men on the wrong women, women on the wrong men--and that all this is a tangle that will never, never be undone." He stepped up to where she sat and dropped his voice to a whisper. "Greta--permit me to say it--I loved you dearly. Would to Heaven I had not! My love was not of yesterday. It was you and I, I and you. That was the only true marriage possible to either of us from world's end to world's end. But Paul came between us; and when I saw you give yourself to the wrong man--" Greta had risen to her feet. "You say you come to ask pardon for what you said, but you really come to repeat it." So saying, she made a show of leaving the room. Hugh stood awhile in silence. Then he threw off his faltering tone and drew himself up. "I have come," he said, "to warn you before it is too late. I have come to say, while it is yet time, never marry my brother, for as sure as God is above us, you will repent it with unquenchable tears if you do." Greta's eyes flashed with an expression of disdain. "No," she said; "you have come to threaten me--a sure sign that you yourself have some secret cause for fear." It was a home-thrust, and Hugh was hit. "Greta, I repeat it, you are marrying the wrong man." "What right have you to say so?" "The right of one who could part you forever with a word." Greta was sore perplexed. Like a true woman, she would have given half her fortune at that moment to probe this mystery. But her indignation got the better of her curiosity. "It is false!" she said. "It is true!" he answered. "I could speak the word that would part you wider than the poles asunder." "Then I challenge you to speak it," she exclaimed. They faced each other, pale, and with quivering lips. "It is not my purpose. I have warned you," he said. "You do not believe your own warning," she answered. He winced, but said not a word. "You have come to me with an idle threat, and fear is written on your own face." He drew his breath sharply, and did not reply. "Whatever it is, you do not believe it."