"It is you who must choose." "Yes, it is I who must choose," her face still uplifted.

"Because I am not a leaf to float on the air, my destiny decided by a breath of wind, I must choose; yet how can I know I decide rightly?
When heart and conscience stand opposed, any decision means sacrifice and pain.

I meant those hasty words wrung out of me in shame, and spoken yonder; I meant them then, and yet they haunt me like so many sheeted ghosts.
'Tis not their untruth, but the thought will not down that the real cause of their utterance was not the wrong done me.

It had other birth." "In what ?" She did not in the least hesitate to answer, her eyes clear and honest upon his own.
"In my love for you," she answered, quietly, her cheeks reddening to the frank avowal.
He grasped her hands, drawing her, unresisting, toward him.
"You confess this to me ?" "Yes, to you; but to you only because I trust you, because I know you as an honorable man," she said, speaking with an earnest simplicity irresistible.

"I am not ashamed of the truth, not afraid to acknowledge it frankly.