"You don't know what you're saying! You make me feel----Why," he demanded, under his breath--"why could it never be--in time, if you stay? I'll never speak of it any more till you permit it, not a sign shall tell you I'm waiting; but by-and-by--will it be always impossible? Dearest, it holds me so fast, my love of you. Don't be harsher than you need; it's so real, so deep. Don't refuse me the right to hope--in secret, by myself; it's all I have, all I'll ask of you for years, if you like--the right to think that you may be my wife some day. Leave me that!" "I can't," she said thickly; "it would be a lie." "You could never care for me--not so much as to let _me_ care for _you_?" A movement answered him, and his head was lowered. He sat, his chin supported by his palm, watching the restless working of her hands in her lap. The closing words of the hymn came out distinctly to them both, and they listened till the hush fell, without knowing that they listened. "May I ask you one thing? You know I shall respect your confidence. Is it because you care for some other man?" "No, no," she said vehemently, "I do not care!" "Thank God for that! While there's no one you like better, you'll be the woman I want and wait for to the end." Her hands lay still; the compulsion for avowal was confronting her at last. To hear this thing and sanction it by leaving him unenlightened would be a wrong that she dared not contemplate; and under the necessity for proclaiming that her sentiments could never affect the matter, she turned cold and damp. Twice she attempted the finality required, and twice her lips parted without sound. "Dr. Kincaid----" He raised his eyes to her, and the courage faded. "Don't think," he said, "that I shall ever make you sorry for telling me that. You've simply removed a dread. I'm grateful to you." "Oh," she murmured, in a suffocating voice, "it makes no difference. How am I to explain the--why don't you understand?" "What is it I should understand?" "You mustn't be grateful; you're mistaken. Never in the world, so long as we live! There was someone else; I----" "Be open with me," he said sternly; "in common fairness, let us have clearness and truth! You just declared that you didn't care for anyone?" "No," she gasped, "I did say that--I meant I didn't care. I don't--we neither care; he doesn't know if I am alive, but ... there used to be another man, and----" "Oh, my God, you are going to tell me you are married?" She shook her head. His eyes were piercing her; she felt them on her wherever she looked. "Then speak and be done! 'There was another man.' What more?" Suddenly the first fear had entered his veins, and, though he was conscious only of a vague oppression, he was already terrified by the anticipation of what he was going to hear. "'There was another man,'" he repeated hoarsely. "What of him?"