"No. I can't claim that."
"Rather than me—?"
"You'll never understand," she told him a little wearily—"never. It was a matter of duty. I had to go back—I had to!"
Her voice trailed off into a broken little sob. But as, moved beyond his strength to resist, Lanyard put forth a hand to take the white-gloved one resting on the cushion beside her, she withdrew it with a swift gesture of denial.
"No!" she cried. "Please! You mustn't do that… You only make it harder …"
"But you love me!"
"I can't. It's impossible. I would—but I may not!"
"Why?"
"I can't tell you."
"If you love me, you must tell me."
She was silent, the white hands working nervously with her handkerchief.
"Lucy!" he insisted—"you must say what stands between you and my love. It's true, I've no right to ask, as I had no right to speak to you of love. But when we've said as much as we have said—we can't stop there. You will tell me, dear?"
She shook her head: "It—it's impossible."
"But you can't ask me to be content with that answer!"
"Oh!" she cried—"how can I make you understand? … When you said what you did, that night—it seemed as if a new day were dawning in my life. You made me believe it was because of me. You put me above you—where I'd no right to be; but the fact that you thought me
