The woman's back turned to him with the long black hair streaming down over the white dress, and Dain's calm face looking at him above her head.
"I cannot," he muttered to himself.

After a long pause he spoke again a little lower, but in an unsteady voice, "It would be too great a disgrace.

I am a white man." He broke down completely there, and went on tearfully, "I am a white man, and of good family.

Very good family," he repeated, weeping bitterly.

"It would be a disgrace.