She started at the fiery declaration, and raised her head.  “Oh, it was you who sent him away, then?”

Her look held almost desperate entreaty for a moment, but he met it with the utmost grimness and it quickly died.

“I didn’t then,” he said, with rough simplicity.  “He made up his mind without any help from me.  He knew he couldn’t face you again.  It’s not a mite of good trying to deceive yourself now you know the truth.  He’s gone, and he won’t come back.  Columbine, don’t tell me as you want him to!”

His expression for the moment was formidable.  She caught an ominous gleam in the stern eyes, but almost immediately they softened.  He uttered a sigh that ended in a groan.  “Now I’m being a brute to you, when there’s nothing that I wouldn’t do for your sake.”  His voice shook a little.  “You won’t believe it, but it’s true—­it’s true.”

“Why shouldn’t I believe it?” she said swiftly.  She had begun to tremble in his hold.

He looked at her with an odd wistfulness.  “Because I’m too big an oaf—­to make you understand,” he said.

“And that is why you have set me free?” she questioned.

He bent his head, almost as if the sudden question embarrassed him.  “Yes, that,” he said after a moment.  “And because I care too much about you to—­marry you against your will.”

“And you call that love?” she said.

He made a slight gesture of surprise.  “It is love,” he said simply.

His arms were still around her, but she had only to move to be free.  She did not move, save that she quivered like a vibrating wire, quivered and hid her face.

“Rufus!” she said.

“Yes?” His head was bent above hers, but he could only see her black hair, so completely was her face averted from him.

Her voice came, tensely whispering.  “What if I were—­willing to marry you?”

Something of her agitation had entered into him.  A great quiver went through him also.  But—­“You’re not,” he said quietly, with conviction.

A trembling hand strayed upwards, feeling over his neck and throat, groping for his face.  “Rufus”—­again came the tense whisper—­“how do you know that?”

He took the wandering hand and pressed it softly against his cheek.  “Because you don’t love me, Columbine,” he said.

“Ah!” A low sob escaped her; she lifted her head suddenly; the tears were running down her face.  “But—­but—­you could teach me, Rufus.  You could teach me what love—­true love—­is.  I want the real thing—­the real thing.  Will you give it to me?  I want it—­more than anything else in the world.”  She drew nearer to him with the words, like a frozen creature seeking warmth, and in a moment her arms were slipping round his neck.  “You are so true—­so strong!” she sobbed.  “I want to forget—­I want to forget that I ever loved—­any one but you.”

His arms were close about her again.  He pressed her so hard against his heart that she felt its strong beating against her own.  His eyes gazed straight into hers, and in them she saw again that deep, deep blue as of flaming spirit.