I love you, Lois. I think you must know it,
though you can not know how great my love is. Is there any hope for
me?"
She drew her hand gently but firmly from his half-unconscious clasp.
"I am sorry--no," she said.
"Lois--I can't give up hope. Is there some one else?"
She lifted her troubled eyes to his face. He saw in their depths a
curious doubt and uncertainty.
"I do not know," she said almost to herself. "I only know that you are
not the man."
The blow had calmed him. Like a good general who has suffered a
temporary check, he gathered his forces together and prepared an
orderly retreat.
"I will not trouble you," he said gently. "I feel now that I did wrong
to disturb your peace--God knows I would never willingly cause you an
instant's sorrow--but a man who loves as I do must feed himself with
hope, however wild and unreasonable. Now I know, and whatever
happens--I hope you will be happy--I pray you will be happy. Yes,
though I am not given to uttering prayers, I pray, so dear to me is
the future which lies before you."
"I am very grateful," she said with bowed head. Something in his
broken, disjointed sentences brought the tears to her eyes and made
her voice unsteady. She knew he was suffering--she knew why, and her
heart went out to him in friendship and womanly pity.
"You need not be grateful," he answered. "It is I who have to be
grateful. In spite of it all, you do not know what good you have
brought into my life nor how you have unconsciously helped me.
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