"You would be obliged to pay someone else," she replied with cruel practicality. "Enough of this," he said, impetuously. "It is absurd. I have something very different at heart. When I spoke of your future just now, Constance, it was to tell you that I have come here, to-night, to ask you to be my wife--to say to you that I love you devotedly and cannot live without you. This is my errand. It is not friendship I offer, it is not pity, it is not esteem for your gentle, strong soul, it is passionate human love." He paused and there was profound silence in the darkened room where they could scarcely see each other's faces. Constance trembled like a leaf. In a moment the whole card-board house of sisterly affection fell about her ears, and she knew the truth. These were the sweetest words she had ever listened to, though they stabbed her like a knife. "Oh!" she whispered, "Oh!" "Is it such a surprise, Constance?" he murmured, ascribing her accents of dismay to that source. "You must have known you were very dear to me." The dimness gave her time to consider how she should deal with this startling certainty, the music of which was dancing in her brain. The meaning of his devotion was now so clear. Yet she had never guessed either his purpose or the secret of her own disconcerting heart-beats. "I knew you were fond of me, but it never occurred to me that you could think of me as a wife." "Why not? You are beautiful and charming as well as sweet and wise, and I adore you." "I liked to feel that we should go on being dear friends for the rest of our lives," she answered, tingling with the thrill which this avowal caused her. From the tremor of her speech he was emboldened to regard the sigh which followed this simple voicing of the exact truth as an ellipsis hiding a precious secret. "Then you love me, Constance?" Whatever happened, why should he not know? Why should she deny herself that ecstasy? "Oh, yes, Gordon, I love you dearly." "And you will be my wife?" "How can I, Gordon? You know I must not." There was gentle pleading in her tone and a tinge of renunciating sadness. "I mean presently. As soon as you obtain a divorce?" The ugly word brought back reality. "Oh, no, we must put it from us. It is a delightful vision, but we must dismiss it forever." "Why?" he asked, with the resonance of vigorous manhood. "Because it would be an offence." "Against what?" "The eternal fitness of things." This phrase of Mrs. Wilson's rose to her lips again as a shibboleth. "I have made my mistake," she murmured. "I must suffer the penalty of it." "Never!" he ejaculated. "It would be monstrous--monstrous." There was a momentary silence. While he gazed at her ardently he was seeking command of himself so as to plead his cause with discriminating lucidity. To her darkened sight imagination pictured a swift river of fire flowing between them, across which they could touch their finger-tips, but no more.