"I did not say that. As proof that I do care I will give you my whole confidence, I will be absolutely honest with you. Will you think me very low-spirited if I tell you that a man still holds a place in my life--a man who cares nothing for me? I ought to forget him--my pride should make it possible, and yet I can not, and somehow I do not think I ever shall." "Isn't that rather a hard punishment for him, Lois?" "For him?" "I, too, will be honest. I know whom you mean and I ask you--does Stafford look a happy man? He looks like a man weighed down by a heavy burden. I believe that burden is the knowledge that he has sinned against you, that in his heedlessness, folly, what you will, he has spoiled your life. Until he feels that you have regained your happiness he will never be able to find his own." A spasm of pain passed over her face. "You mean--I stand in his way?" "I believe so. And I am sure of one thing--for your own sake as well as for his, you must shake off your old affection for him, and how better than through the cultivation of a new and stronger love? My dear little girl, you couldn't pretend that all the happy hours we have spent together count for nothing. You say my friendship has been a great deal to you. What else is friendship but the sanest, most lasting, and noblest part of love? What surer basis was ever the union between a man and woman built upon? I know what you would say--it has come too soon. You have only just pulled yourself up from a hard blow, and you feel that you must have time to right yourself and all the hopes that were bowled over with you. My dear, I understand that--God knows, I understand too well--but have pity on me. Think how I have waited, and how time has drifted on and on for me. Must I wait the best years of my life? Won't you let me add the whole of my love to time's cure for healing the old wound?" There was no pretense in his pleading, no pretense in the passion with which his voice shook. And because it was genuine, it carried her forward on the wave of powerful feeling toward his will. "I do care for you," she said, with a strong effort to appear calm. "As a friend you are very dear to me, and you are no doubt right to class friendship so highly. But I can not pretend that I love you. I do not love you. And a woman should love the man she marries." He let her hands fall. "And so you are going to let your life remain empty, little woman?" "Empty?" she echoed.