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!”

Brant rose to his feet, and stood looking down upon her bowed head, her slender figure shaken by sobs.  Whatever it might prove to be, this mysterious shadow of a dead man, there could be no doubting what it now meant to her.  His eyes were filled with a love unutterable.

“Naida, as you have asked it, I will go; but I go better, stronger, because I have heard your lips say you love me.  I am going now, my sweetheart, but if I live, I shall come again.  I know nothing of what you mean about a dead man being between us, but I shall know when I come back, for, dead or alive, no man shall remain between me and the girl I love.”

“This—­this is different,” she sobbed, “different; it is beyond your power.”