Will looked across at her kindly. She was very charming. “I won’t be cruel enough, Rue,” he said, leaning forward to her like a brother, “to ask you what answer you meant to give, if I’d done as you expected. I hope you won’t think me conceited if I say I half believe I know it already. And that’s just why I want to tell you now the reason that has prevented me from ever asking you. If your nature were a little less deep, and a little less womanly than it really is, I might have asked you long ago. But, Rue, you know—I feel sure you know—how deeply I loved that other woman. I love her still, and I won’t pretend to deny it. I’ve waited and wondered whether in time her image might fade out of my heart; but it never has faded. She’s another man’s wife, and probably I shall never see her again; yet I love her as dearly and regret her as much as I did on the day when I first heard she’d thrown herself away for life upon Andreas Hausberger.” “I’ve felt sure you did,” Rue answered, with downcast eyes. “_I’ve_ felt it, Will—and for that very reason, I’ve wondered all the less you didn’t ask me.” Will looked across at her again. She was beautiful as she sat there with the glow of the fire on her pensive features. “Dear Rue,” he said, softly, “you and I are no mere children. We know our own minds. We’re grown man and woman. We can venture to talk freely to one another of these things, without the foolish, childish nonsense of false shame or false blushes. In spite of Linnet, I’d have asked you long ago to be my wife—if I hadn’t respected and admired you so deeply. But I feel you’re not a woman who could ever put up with half a man’s heart, or half a man’s confidence; and half my heart is all I could give you. I love Linnet still, and I shall always love her. I never shall cease to feel an undying regret that _I_ didn’t marry her, instead of that fellow Hausberger. Now, there are women not a few I might still have asked to marry me, in spite of that regret; but _you’re_ not one of them. I love you better than I ever have loved anyone else on this earth—anyone else, but Linnet; and, therefore, I don’t ask you to marry a man who could give you a second place only in his affections.”