She went on drearily, as if he had not spoken. "That was the end of everything between us; and it's just as well now. For I shouldn't have been able to marry him even if it hadn't been." "Why not?" said Noel. She looked away from him, and was silent. He leaned down towards her, and spoke quickly, urgently. "Olga dear, forgive me for asking, but I must know. Don't you really love him?" She made a little unconscious gesture of the hands as of pushing something from her. "No," she said. "But you did?" he insisted. She leaned her elbow on her knee, lodging her chin upon her hand. "I thought I did--once," she said slowly. "But--it was a mistake." "It couldn't have been," he said. She nodded slowly two or three times, not turning her head. "Yes," she said, with the air of one clinching an argument. "It was a mistake." Noel was silent for a few moments. There was something in her set profile that hurt him. He longed to see her full face. But she did not move. She seemed almost to have forgotten that he was there. He moved at last, bending nearer. "Olga!" he whispered. "Yes?" Still she did not turn. He slipped down to his knees beside her. "Olga!" he said again very pleadingly. She stirred then, stirred and looked him full in the eyes. And all his life Noel remembered the awful despair that looked out at him from her soul "I--can't!" she said. He clasped her two hands between his own. "Can't you even think of it?" he urged, under his breath. "You know--you said--you'd have married me if--if--poor old Max hadn't come first. I wouldn't cut him out for worlds; but that's happened already, hasn't it? Surely there's no one else?" But Olga made no answer. Only the despair in her eyes deepened to a dumb agony. "Darling," he whispered, gathering her hands up and holding them against his face, "I'd be awfully good to you. And I want you--I do want you. Won't you even consider it?" A great shiver went through Olga. "Won't you have my love?" he said. But still for a little she was silent. It seemed that no words would come. Then, as he pressed his lips to the hands he had taken, something seemed suddenly to break loose within her. With a great sob she leaned her head upon his shoulder. "Noel! Noel! I--can't!" His arms clasped her in a moment; he held her close. "Dearest, what is it? Why can't you?" She answered him with her face hidden and in a voice so low that he barely caught the words. "I am--not free!" "Not free!" Sharply he repeated the phrase. Suspicion, keen-edged as a rapier, ran swiftly through him. His arms tightened. "Olga, tell me what you mean! Who is it? Not--not that devil Hunt-Goring!" She did not answer him, save by her silence and the convulsive shudder that went through her at his words. But that in itself was answer enough, and over her head Noel swore a deep and terrible oath.