“We have not parted yet,” said Gervase, trying to take her hand. “Dorothy, I have come here to speak what I have not dared to say before. Nay, nay, you must listen to me, for all our life depends on it. From the first moment that we met, I have had one thought, one hope. I have watched you in silence, for it was not a time to talk of love. Every day on duty, every night on guard, you have been with me consoling and sustaining me. I have no words to tell you all that I would tell you. I have reproached myself for my selfishness. While others were overcome with their misery, I went about with a light and joyous heart; it was enough for me to be near you, to feel your presence, to serve you with my life. Dorothy, I love you.” “Oh! I cannot hear you,” she cried, rising to her feet and hiding her face in her hands; “it is wrong for me to listen to you.” “Nay, nay, my best beloved, you shall listen to me,” he went on, with all a lover´s gentle but fierce insistence. “You have spoken words that you cannot recall. All the night in the river and in the woods they rang like music in my ears, and kept my heart from failing in me. I knew you loved me.” “I will not hear you,” she cried; “they were weak words and wicked. I had no right to speak them.” “But they were true,” he said, with no clue to her meaning, “and I will hold you to your words. I dare not let you go; there is nothing stands between us and nothing will.” “Everything stands between us.” Then with a great effort she calmed herself and went on gently, “My words were wrung from me, I should not have spoken them, but I stand by them--they were the truth. I do love you. Nay, you must hear me out; you must not come nearer, now nor ever again. When they were spoken I had no right to speak them; I was the betrothed wife of Victor De Laprade.” He stared at her incredulously. “I was alone; there was no one to whom I could go for advice. I was only a girl; I did not know my own heart. Then the Vicomte de Laprade was struck down unfairly by my brother to whom he had given back his fortune and--and I thought he was going to die. What reparation I could make, it was my duty and my will to make. I had not thought of love--or you. Oh! why did you speak to me?” “Nay, but, Dorothy, this means the sacrifice of your life. De Laprade is generous. He will not ask----” She turned to him with a look of pride in her tearful eyes. “He will never know, for I shall stand loyally by the word that I have given him. I shall school my feelings; I shall subdue myself; I shall rise above my wayward thoughts. And you will help me. You will say, ‘Farewell, my sister´, and think of me always as a sister you have loved and is dead.” “But consider----”