"Of our love," he said,
steadily.
She colored deeply. "But why?" she stammered; "why? We
have done no wrong. We need do no wrong. We would be
friends--nothing more; and I--oh, I so need a friend!"
For almost the first time in Loder's knowledge of her, her
voice broke, her control deserted her. She stood before him
in all the pathos of her lonely girlhood--her empty life.
The revelation touched him with sudden poignancy; the real
strength that lay beneath his faults, the chivalry buried
under years of callousness, stirred at the birth of a new
emotion. The resolution preserved at such a cost, the
sacrifice that had seemed wellnigh impossible, all at once
took on a different shape. What before had been a barren duty
became suddenly a sacred right. Holding out his arms, he drew
her to him as if she had been a child.
"Eve," he said, gently, "I have learned to-night how fully a
woman's life is at the mercy of the world--and how scanty that
mercy is. If circumstances had been different, I believe--I
am convinced--I would have made you a good husband--would have
used my right to protect you as well as a man could use it.
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