With all my heart I
thank you for the love you tell me of. Even if it is, as I can but think
it, a passing fancy, I thank you, nevertheless. It is sweet to win the
love of a good man. I pray you to believe that with all my heart and mind
I honour your generous nature, your noble sympathy with the weak and
friendless. If you can give me your friendship, you shall find how I can
value a good man's regard, but I cannot accept your love."
"Why not?" asked Gustave, aghast.
"Because I cannot give you measure for measure, and I will not give you
less."
"But in time, Diane, in time?"
"Time cannot show me your character in a nobler light than that in which
I see it now. You do not lack the power to win a woman's heart, but I
have no heart to give. If you will be my friend, time will increase my
affection for you--but time cannot restore the dead."
"Which means that your heart is dead, Diane?"
"Yes," she answered, with unutterable sadness.
"You love some one younger, happier than I?"
"No, M. Lenoble, no one."
"But you have loved? Yes!--a scoundrel, perhaps; a villain, who--"
A spasm of pain contracted his face as he looked at the girl's drooping
head; her face, in that dim light, he could not see.
"Tell me this, Diane," he said presently, in an altered voice; "there is
no barrier between us--no irrevocable obstacle that must part us for
ever? There is no one who can claim you by any right--" He paused; and
then added, in a lower voice, "by any wrong?"
"No one," answered Miss Paget, lifting her head, and looking her lover
full in the face.
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