"I beg your pardon, Mr. Darrell," she interposed, more gently; "I did
not intend to accuse you of deception. I only meant that, regardless of
any personal feeling, it was, as you said, better to stop this; that to
carry it farther after you had found you did not care for me as you
supposed--or as I was led to suppose----" She paused an instant,
uncertain how to proceed.
"Kathie, Kathie! what are you saying?" Darrell exclaimed. "What have I
said that you should so misunderstand me?"
"But," she protested, piteously, struggling to control her voice, "did
you not say that it was all a mistake on your part--that you wished it
all undone? What else could I understand?"
"My poor child!" said Darrell, tenderly; then reaching over and
possessing himself of one of her hands, he continued, gravely: "The mistake was mine in that I ever allowed myself to think of loving
you when love is not for me. I have no right, Kathie, to love you, or
any other woman, as I am now. I did not know until last night that I did
love you. Then it came upon me like a revelation,--a revelation so
overwhelming that it swept all else before it. You, and you alone,
filled my thoughts. Wherever I was, I saw you, heard you, and you only.
Again and again in imagination I clasped you to my breast, I felt your
kisses on my lips,--just as I afterwards felt them in reality."
He paused a moment and dropped the hand he had taken. Under cover of the
shadows Kate's tears were falling unchecked; one, falling on Darrell's
hand, had warned him that there must be no weakening, no softening.
His voice was almost stern as he resumed. "For those few hours I forgot
that I was a being apart from the rest of the world, exiled to darkness
and oblivion; forgot the obligations to myself and to others which my
own condition imposes upon me. But the dream passed; I awoke to a
realization of what I had done, and whatever I have suffered since is
but the just penalty of my folly. The worst of all is that I have
involved you in needless suffering; I have won your love only to have to
put it aside--to renounce it. But even this is better--far better than
to allow your young life to come one step farther within the clouds
that envelop my own. Do you understand me now, Kathie?"
"Yes," she replied, calmly; "I understand it from your view, as it looks
to you."
"But is not that the only view?"
She did not speak at once, and when she did it was with a peculiar
deliberation.
"The clouds will lift one day; what then?"