She waited, seriously attentive.

"I haven't played fair, I'm afraid," he said, lowering his head to
escape her steadfast gaze. "I've just told you that I love you, but...."

"Well?" she demanded in an odd, ringing voice. "Isn't it true?"

"True?" He laughed unnaturally. "It's so true I--wish I had died before
I told you!"

"Why?"

"Because ... because you didn't resent my telling you...."

It seemed impossible for him to speak connectedly or at any length,
impossible to overcome his distaste for the hateful confession he must
make. And she was intolerably patient with him; he resented her quiet,
contained patience; while he feared, yet he was relieved when she at
length insisted: "Well?"

"Since you didn't resent that confession, I am led to believe you
don't--exactly--dislike me. That makes it just so much the harder to
forfeit your regard."

"But must you?"

"Yes."

"Please explain," she urged, a trace wearily.

"I who love you with all my heart and mind and soul--I am not free to
love you."

"You aren't free--!"

"I.... No."

After several moments, during which he fought vainly with his inability
to go on, she resumed her examination with a manner aloof and yet
determined:

"You've told me so much, I think you can hardly refuse to tell more."

"I," he stammered--"I am already married."

She gave a little, stifled cry--whether of pain or horror or of
indignation he could not tell.

"I'm sorry--I--" he began.

"Don't you think you might have thought of this before?"

"I ... you don't understand--"

"Are you in the habit of declaring yourself first and confessing
later?... Don't answer, if you don't want to. I've no real right to
know. I asked out of simple curiosity."

"If you'd only listen to me!" he broke out suddenly. "The thing's so
strange, so far off--dreamlike--that I forget it easily."

"So it would seem," she put in cruelly.

"Please hear me!"

"Surely you must see I am listening, Mr. Whitaker."

"It was several years ago--nearly seven. I was on the point of
death--had been told to expect death within a few months.... In a moment
of sentimental sympathy--I wasn't at all myself--I married a girl I'd
never seen before, to help her out of a desperate scrape she'd got
into--meaning simply to give her the protection of my name. She was in
bad trouble.... We never lived together, never even saw one another
after that hour. She had every reason to think me dead--as I should have