"How?" I inquired, her harsh, cruel words instantly bringing me to my senses.
"You have flirted with me on several occasions, and perhaps I have even foolishly encouraged you. If I have done so, then I am alone to blame.
Every woman is flattered by attention," she answered, gazing straight into my eyes, and sighing slightly.
"But I love you!" I cried. "You surely must have seen, Eva, that from the first day we were introduced I have been irrevocably yours. I have not, I a.s.sure you, uttered these words without weighty consideration, nor without calmly putting the question to myself. Can you give me absolutely no hope?"
She shook her head. There was a sorrowful expression upon her face, as though she pitied me.
"None," she answered, and her great blue eyes were downcast.
"Ah, no!" I cried in quick protest. "Don"t say that. I love you with a fierce, ardent affection such as few men have within their hearts. If you will but reciprocate that love, then I swear that the remainder of my life shall be devoted to you."
"It is impossible," she responded in a harsh, despairing voice, quite unlike her usual self. Her head was bowed, as though she dare not again look into my face.
Once more I caught her hand, holding it within my grasp. It seemed to have grown cold, and in an instant its touch brought back to me the recollection of that fatal night in Kensington. Would that I might lay bare all that I knew, and ask her for an explanation. But to do so would be to show that I doubted her; therefore I was compelled to remain silent.
"Why impossible?" I inquired persuasively. "The many times we have met since our first introduction have only served to increase my love for you. Surely you will not withhold from me every hope?"
"Alas!" she faltered, with a downward sweep of her lashes, her hand trembling in mine, "I am compelled."
"Compelled?" I echoed. "I don"t understand. You are not engaged to Langdale?"
"No."
"Then why are you forced to give me this negative answer?" I asked in deep earnestness, for until then I had not known the true strength of my love for her.
The seriousness of her beautiful countenance relaxed slightly, still her breast slowly heaved and fell, plainly showing the agitation within her.
"Because it is absolutely imperative that I should do so," she replied.
Suddenly a thought flashed through my mind.
"Perhaps," I said, "perhaps I"ve been too precipitate. If so--if I have spoken too plainly and frankly--forgive me, Eva. It is only because I can no longer repress the great love I bear you. I think of you always--always. My every thought is of you; my every hope is of happiness at your side; my very life depends upon your favour and your love."
"No, no!" she cried, with a quick movement of her hand as if to stay my words. "Don"t say that. You may remain my friend if you like--but you may never be my lover--never!"
"Never your lover!" I gasped, starting back as though she had dealt me a blow. I felt at that moment as though all I appreciated in life was slipping from me. I had staked all, everything, and lost. "Ah, do not give me this hasty answer," I urged. "I have been too eager; I am a fool. Yet I love you with a stronger, fiercer pa.s.sion than any man can ever love you with, Eva. You are my very life," and notwithstanding her effort to s.n.a.t.c.h her hand away, I again raised it reverently to my lips.
"No, no. This is a mere summer dream, Mr. Urwin," she said, with a cool firmness well a.s.sumed, although she avoided my gaze. "I have flirted with you, it is true, and we have spent many pleasant hours together, but I have never taken you seriously. You were always so merry and careless, you know."
"You did not believe, then, that I really loved you?" I observed, divining her thoughts.
"Exactly," she answered, still very grave. "If I had thought so, I should never have allowed our acquaintance to ripen as it has done."
"Are you annoyed that I should have declared only what is but the absolute truth?" I asked.
"Not at all," she responded quickly, with something of her old self in her low, sweet voice. "How can I be annoyed?"
"And you will forgive my hasty declaration?" I urged.
"There is nothing to forgive," she replied, smiling. "I only regret that you have misconstrued my friendship into love."
I was silent. These last words of hers crushed all hope from my soul.
She sat with her hand trailing listlessly in the water, apparently intent upon the long rushes waving in the green depths below.
"Then," I said in a disappointed voice, half-choked with emotion, "then you cannot love me, Eva, after all?"
"I did not say so," she answered slowly, almost mechanically.
"What?" I cried joyously, again bending forward towards her. "Will you then try and love me--will you defer your answer until we know one another better? Say that you will."
Again she shook her head with sorrowful air. She looked at me with a kind of mingled grief and joy, bliss embittered by despair.
"Why should I deceive you?" she asked. "Why, indeed, should you deceive yourself?"
"I do not deceive myself," I protested, "I only know that I adore you; that you are the sole light of my life, and that I love you devotedly."
"Ah! And in a month, perhaps, you will tell a similar story to some other woman," she observed doubtingly. "Men are too often fickle."
"I swear that I"ll never do that," I declared. "My affairs of the heart have been few."
"But Mary?" she suggested, and I knew from her tone that she had been thinking deeply of her.
"Ours was a mere boy and girl liking," I hastened to a.s.sure her. "Ask her, and she will tell you the same. We never really loved."
She smiled, rather dubiously I thought.
"But surely you are aware that she loves you even now," Eva answered.
"Loves me!" I echoed in surprise. "That"s absolutely ridiculous.
Since we parted not a single word of affection has ever been uttered between us."
"And you actually do not love her?" she asked in deep earnestness, looking straight into my eyes. "Are you really certain?"
"I do not," I answered. "I swear I don"t."
The boat was drifting, and with a swift stroke of the oars I ran her bows into the bank. Overhead the larks were singing their joyous songs and the hot air seemed to throb with the humming of a myriad insects.
The afternoon was gloriously sunny, and away in the meadow on the opposite bank a picnic party were busy preparing their tea amid peals of feminine laughter.
"Well," she sighed, "I can only regret that you have spoken as you have to-day. I regret it the more because I esteem your friendship highly, Mr. Urwin. We might have been friends--but lovers we may never be?"
"Why never?" I inquired, acutely disappointed.
"There are circ.u.mstances which entirely prevent such a course," she answered. "Unfortunately, it is impossible for me to be more explicit."
"So you are prevented by some utterly inexplicable circ.u.mstances from loving me?" I observed, greatly puzzled.
"Yes," she responded, toying with the ta.s.sel of her sunshade.