"I am sorry," she said at last. "I am sorry you have spoken to me of it. I have felt for some time that you--you cared for me. No, Lieutenant Bray, I cannot be your wife."
"I know you love him," he said.
"Yes, it is plain. I have not tried to hide it."
"You must understand why I asked you to be my wife, knowing that you love him. It was to hear it from your own lips, so that I would not go through life with the feeling, after all, that it might have been. Will you tell me the reason why you cannot marry him? He must love you."
"Lieutenant Bray, he would marry me to-morrow, I think, if I were to consent. It isn't that. It would not be right for me to consent. You profess to love me. I have seen it in your eyes--oh, I have learned much of men in the past few months--and I determined, if you ever asked me to marry you, to ask a question in return. Do you really know who I am?"
He looked his surprise. "Why, the daughter of David Cable, of course."
"No, I am not his daughter."
"His stepdaughter?"
"Not even that. You come from a proud Southern family. I do not know who my parents were."
"Good Heaven, you-you don't mean you were waif?"
"A waif without a name, Lieutenant Bray. This is not self-abasement; it is not the parading of misfortune. It is because you have made the mistake of loving me. If you care less for me now than you did before, you will spread this information throughout the army."
"Believe me, I am not that sort."
"Thank you. Knowing what you now do, could you ask me to be your wife?"
"Don't put it just that way," he stammered.
"Ah, I see. It was a cruel question. And yet it proves that you do not love as Graydon Bansemer loves."
"Some day you may find out all about your parents and be happy. You may have been abducted and---" he was saying, his face white and wet. Somehow he felt that he was chastening himself.
"Perhaps," she said quietly. "I might not have told you this had not the story been printed in every newspaper in the States just before I left. You see, I did not know it until just a few months ago. I thought you might have read of me. I--I am so notorious."
"Jane, dear Jane, you must not feel that way!" he cried, as she started quickly away. "It's---" But she turned and motioned for him to cease. There were tears in her eyes. He stood stock still. "She's wonderful!" he said to himself, as she walked away. "Even now, I believe I could--Pshaw! It ought not to make any difference! If it wasn't for my family--What's in a name, anyway? A name---" He started to answer his own question, but halted abruptly, squared his shoulders and then with true Southern, military bearing strode away, murmuring: "A name is something; yes, family is everything."