"Yes, I have suffered," she said, in a low voice; "horribly."
"And it is I who have done this. I who have ruined your happiness and brought into your life tragedy and crime. My curse is upon you as it has been on all women who have ever cared for me."
"There have been women then who cared for you, and who have suffered as I have suffered?"
"Perhaps more," he answered gloomily. "You, at least, have the satisfaction of knowing—if it is a satisfaction—that what you suffer I suffer ten thousand fold, that I love you as I have never loved any other woman."
"Ah!" she interrupted, with a little cry of pain. "The other women. There was surely one, there must have been, whom you loved."
"There was one," he answered gravely, "who risked much for my sake, and to whom I was bound by every tie of honour. It was in the East. Some day, if ever we are together—and that is not likely—I will tell you the whole story; I cannot now, I am ashamed to think of what she sacrificed for me, and how little I deserved it—how little real love I gave in return. She is dead. It humiliates me to remember the light way in which I played with love, in other episodes—never mind them. If you were to be my wife you should have the whole record; and it is not a stainless one; but there is no woman nor the memory of one who should stand between you and me."
She put out her hand to him and he kissed it very tenderly, but his manner was curiously self-contained. She could see that he was holding himself under restraint.
"Come, Elsie," he said. "I have made my fate, and regret will not undo it. All that I can do for you is to remove myself from your life, and that I will do. Now I am going to take you back to your sister. We have a long, rough ride, and we must manage it as best we can."
He led her along the cliff edge. She walked as in a dream. Down below lay the still dark lagoon, and opposite, the shelving quicksands. Blake did not take her by quite
