"The newest! The most daring and the most glorious I ever had."
"Why, then I have been mistaken," she said softly, for an instant
meeting his eyes. "I fancied I owed you something for a wrong I did,
without meaning it, more than eight years gone by."
"That thought had come to you?" Piers exclaimed, with eyes gleaming.
"Indeed it had. I shall be more than half sorry if I have to lose
it."
"How foolish I was! What wild, monstrous folly! How could you have
dreamt for a moment that such a one as I was could dare to love you?
--Irene, you did me no wrong. You gave me the ideal of my life--
something I should never lose from my heart and mind--something to
live towards! Not a hope; hope would have been madness. I have loved
you without hope; loved you because I had found the only one I could
love--the one I must love--on and on to the end."
She laid her free hand upon his that clasped the other, and bowed
him to her reasoning mood.
"Let me speak of other things--that have to be made plain between
you and me. First of all, a piece of news. I have just heard that my
brother is going to marry Mrs. John Jacks."
Piers was mute with astonishment. It was so long since he had seen
Mrs. Jacks, and he pictured her as a woman much older than Eustace
Derwent. His clearest recollection of her was that remark she made
at the luncheon-table about the Irish, that they were so
"sentimental"; it had blurred her beauty and her youth in his
remembrance.
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