Their eyes were meeting, but she held up her hand to restrain him from

the one step forward.

"No, no; I have confessed the truth; I have opened freely to you the

great secret of my heart. With it you must be content to leave me.

There is nothing more that I can give you, absolutely nothing. I can

never be your wife; I hope, for your sake and mine, that we never meet

again."

She did not break down, or hesitate in the utterance of these words,

although there was a piteous tremble on her lips, a pathetic appeal in

her eyes. Brant stood like a statue, his face grown white. He did not

in the least doubt her full meaning of renunciation.

"You will, at least, tell me why?" It was all that would come to his

dry lips.

She sank back upon the sofa, as though the strength had suddenly

deserted her body, her eyes shaded by an uplifted hand.

"I cannot tell you. I have no words, no courage. You will learn some

day from others, and be thankful that I loved you well enough to resist

temptation. But the reason cannot come to you from my lips."

He leaned forward, half kneeling at her feet, and she permitted him to

clasp her hand within both his own. "Tell me, at least, this--is it

some one else? Is it Hampton?"

She smiled at him through a mist of tears, a smile the sad sweetness of

which he would never forget. "In the sense you mean, no. No living

man stands between us, not even Bob Hampton."

"Does he know why this cannot be?"

"He does know, but I doubt if he will ever reveal his knowledge;

certainly not to you. He has not told me all, even in the hour when he

thought himself dying. I am convinced of that. It is not because he

dislikes you, Lieutenant Brant, but because he knew his partial

revealment of the truth was a duty he owed us both."

There was a long, painful pause between them, during which neither

ventured to look directly at the other.

"You leave me so completely in the dark," he said, finally; "is there

no possibility that this mysterious obstacle can ever be removed?"

"None. It is beyond earthly power--there lies between us the shadow of

a dead man."

He stared at her as if doubting her sanity.

"A dead man! Not Gillis?"

"No, it is not Gillis. I have told you this much so that you might

comprehend how impossible it is for us to change our fate. It is

irrevocably fixed. Please do not question me any more; cannot you see

how I am suffering? I beseech your pity; I beg you not to prolong this

useless interview. I cannot bear it!"




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