She looked directly at him, her hands clasped, her breath almost sobbing between the parted lips. At first she could not speak. "Oh, you hurt me so," she faltered at last. "I did not suppose you could ever think that. I--I did not mean it; oh, truly I did not mean it! You forget how young I am; how very little I know of the world and its ways. Perhaps I have not even realized how deeply in earnest you were, have deceived myself into believing you were merely amusing yourself with me. Why, indeed, should I think otherwise? How could I venture to believe you would ever really care in that way for such a waif as I? You have seen other women in that great Eastern world of which I have only read--refined, cultured, princesses, belonging to your own social circle,--how should I suppose you could forget them, and give your heart to a little outcast, a girl without a name or a home? Rather should it be I who might remain perplexed and bewildered." "I love you," he said, with simple honesty. "I seek you for my wife." She started at these frankly spoken words, her hands partially concealing her face, her form trembling. "Oh, I wish you hadn't said that! It is not because I doubt you any longer; not that I fail to appreciate all you offer me. But it is so hard to appear ungrateful, to give nothing in return for so vast a gift." "Then it is true that you do not love me?" The blood flamed suddenly up into her face, but there was no lowering of the eyes, no shrinking back. She was too honest to play the coward before him. "I shall not attempt to deceive you," she said, with a slow impressiveness instantly carrying conviction. "This has already progressed so far that I now owe you complete frankness. Donald Brant, now and always, living or dead, married or single, wherever life may take us, I shall love you." Their eyes were meeting, but she held up her hand to restrain him from the one step forward. "No, no; I have confessed the truth; I have opened freely to you the great secret of my heart. With it you must be content to leave me. There is nothing more that I can give you, absolutely nothing. I can never be your wife; I hope, for your sake and mine, that we never meet again." She did not break down, or hesitate in the utterance of these words, although there was a piteous tremble on her lips, a pathetic appeal in her eyes. Brant stood like a statue, his face grown white. He did not in the least doubt her full meaning of renunciation. "You will, at least, tell me why?" It was all that would come to his dry lips. She sank back upon the sofa, as though the strength had suddenly deserted her body, her eyes shaded by an uplifted hand. "I cannot tell you. I have no words, no courage. You will learn some day from others, and be thankful that I loved you well enough to resist temptation. But the reason cannot come to you from my lips."