“I love you, and I want to marry you. I wish you to divorce your husband and marry me. Don’t give me your final answer now,” he continued, as Ora interrupted him. “It is not a question to decide in a moment. But while I am gone think it over. You do not love your husband. I know all your arguments from your friend. She made them when I first gave her my confidence. They don’t weigh with me for a moment. You will never spend your life with that man, good as he may be. As for obligations, you discharged them long ago. I can make you happy, and I believe that you know I can.” “I don’t know.” Ora, stunned for a moment, felt thrilled and breathless. “Oh, I don’t know!” “I have begun to feel sure that you have loved another man, or fancied that you loved him. Would it be possible for you to marry him if you divorced your husband?” Ora hesitated, then answered, “No.” “Why is he not your lover?” “That would be impossible, even if I would do such a thing, and you know I would not.” He gave a sharp sigh of relief. “I _felt_ that he had not been. Why is it impossible?” “There are complications. I cannot explain them. But he could not be less to me if he were dead.” “Does he love you?” Ora hesitated again. “I have sometimes felt--no, of course, it is impossible. I let my imagination run away with me, that was all.” “You mean that he never told you--that he doesn’t write to you?” “I met him only once, and I have never seen his handwriting.” “Well, dismiss him from your mind. You have imagination and have dreamed, because your demands upon life are very great, greater than you know; and oddly enough, considering your opportunities, fruition has eluded you. But the time has come for you to live; and you could live!” Ora looked down at her hands. They were ungloved and looked very white and small. Valdobia suddenly covered them with one of his own, and bent his face close to hers. She saw that he had forgotten his mother, and gave a little gasp. “Ora!” he said. “Don’t you know how happy I could make you? I not only could teach you love, of which you know nothing, but we could always be companions, and you are the loneliest little creature I have ever met.” To her astonishment she saw two tears splash on his hand, and winking rapidly discovered that they had fallen from her own eyes. As she would have detested to see a man cry, she melted further, and whispered, “Oh, yes, life with you would be very delightful. I know that. I fancy the other man, even if I could marry him, would make me miserable. He--American men that amount to anything give their wives very little of themselves.”