"Oh, why did you come here?" she went on. "I didn't believe it, Eve; I thought it was all gammon." "No; it's true." "That you were going to leave me?--Going off without letting me know?" "Yes." "Who has been talking to you? Cicely--now that she is herself again? She's a murderous little creature." "I talked to _her_, I asked her to take me with her." "What is the matter with you?" said Paul. He bent and took her hands, and drew her to her feet. "Now I can look at you.--Tell me what you mean." "Baby came near being drowned. And it was my fault. That brought me to my senses." "It took you out of them!" "I saw then that I had been thinking only of myself, my own happiness." "Oh, it would have been some happiness, would it?" said Paul, with a touch of sarcasm. He took her in his arms. "Have you the least doubt about my love for you?" Eve asked. He looked deep into her eyes, so near his own. "No, I haven't." And he rested his lips on hers. She did not resist, she returned his kiss. Then she left him. "It's like death to me, but I must. I shall never marry you." She went towards her canoe. Paul gave a laugh. "That's a nice way to talk when I've been slaving over the house, and got all sorts of suffocating things you'll like." He came and took her hands off the boat's edge. "Why, Eve," he said, with sudden passion, "a week from to-day we shall be living there together." "Never together." "Why?" "I can't tell you, because it's against myself.--I haven't the strength to tell you." "Because it will make me think less of you? Not so much so as your trying to slip away from me unawares." "You think it wouldn't. But it would." "Try me!" She released herself from the grasp of his hands. "Oh, if the cases had been reversed, how little _I_ should have minded! No matter what you had done, you would have been the same to me--God knows you would! In life, in death, before anything and everything, I should have adored you always, you would always have come first." "So it is with me," said Paul. "No, it is _not_. And it's for that reason I am leaving you." Paul made no more use of words. What she had said had left no impression upon him--no impression of importance. He had never been so much in love with her as at this moment. "Don't you see how I am suffering?--I cannot bear it. Oh, leave me! let me go! Another minute and I shall not have the strength.--Don't kiss me again. Listen! _I_ shot Ferdie, your brother. I--I!" Paul's arms dropped. "Ferdie? Poor Ferdie?" The tears rushed to his eyes. "Why, some negroes did it." "There were no negroes. It was I." He stood there as if petrified.