“Remember,” she said, “remember I had written to you, asking your help.  I had waited days, and no answer had come.  I had no right to believe that I could ask your help.”

“Joan, Joan, didn’t you know that you could?  Have you forgotten what I told you once—­that stands true to-day as then, will stand true to the last hour of my life.  I have brought shame and misery on you, God forgive me—­yet unintentionally, Joan.”  He leaned forward, and grasped at her hand and held it, though she would have drawn it free of him.  “I told you that I loved you that night.  I love you now—­my love for you gives me the right to protect you!”

“You have no rights, no rights,” she said, and drew her hand away.

“Because you will not give me those rights.  I asked you to marry me once.  I came to you, thinking in my small soul that I was doing a fine thing, offering atonement—­my—­my very words, atonement—­for the evil I had unwittingly done.  And you refused to accept the prize!” He laughed bitterly.  “You refused with scorn, just scorn, Joan.  You made me realise that I had but added to my offence.  I—­I to offer you marriage, in my lordly way, when I should have sued on my knees to you for forgiveness, as I would sue now, humbly and contritely, offering love and love alone—­love and worship and service to the end of my days, as please Heaven I shall sue, Joan.”

“You cannot!” she said quietly.  “You cannot, and if you should, the answer will be the same, as then!”

“Because you can never forgive?”

“Because I have no power to give what you would ask for!”

“Your love?”

She did not answer.  She turned her face away, for she knew she could not in truth say “No” to that, for the knowledge that she had been trying to stifle was with her now, the knowledge that meant that she could not love the man whose wife she had promised to be.

“My—­my hand—­” she said.

And he, not understanding for the moment, looked at her, and then suddenly understanding came to him.

“You—­you mean?”

“You—­you did not answer my letter, and I—­I waited,” she said, and her voice was low and muffled.  There was no pride in her face now; all its hardness, all its bitterness and scorn were gone.

“I waited and waited—­and thought—­hoped,” she said, “and nothing came.  And yesterday a man—­a man I like and admire, a fine man, a good man, honest and noble, a man who—­who loves me better than I deserve, came to me—­and—­and so to-day it is too late!  Though,” she cried, with a touch of scorn for herself, “it would have made no difference—­nothing would have made any difference.  You—­you understand that I scarcely know what I am saying!”

“You have given your promise to another man?” he asked quietly.

“Yes!”

“And you do not love him?”

“He’s a man,” she cried, “a man who would not make a jest of a woman’s name.”