Your sight is jaundiced: you have seen wrong. Your mind is warped: you have judged wrong. Your tongue betrays you: you now speak wrong. I never loved you. Be at rest there. My heart is as pure of passion for you as yours is barren of affection for me.'
"I hope I was answered, Yorke?
"'I seem to be a blind, besotted sort of person,' was my remark.
"'Loved you!' she cried. 'Why, I have been as frank with you as a sister—never shunned you—never feared you. You cannot,' she affirmed, triumphantly—'you cannot make me tremble with your coming, nor accelerate my pulse by your influence.'
"I alleged, that often, when she spoke to me, she blushed, and that the sound of my name moved her.
"'Not for your sake!' she declared, briefly: I urged explanation, but could get none.
"'When I sat beside you at the school-feast, did you think I loved you then? When I stopped you in Maythorn-lane, did you think I loved you then? When I called on you in the counting-house—when I walked with you on the pavement—did you think I loved you then?'
"So she questioned me: and I said, I did.
"By the Lord! Yorke—she rose—she grew tall—she expanded and refined almost to flame: there was a trembling all through her, as in live coal, when its vivid vermilion is hottest.
"'That is to say, that you have the worst opinion of me: that you deny me the possession of all I value most. That is to say, that I am a traitor to all
