I thought--I admit it--at one time I would spend my life out there in the East, and the thought contented me.
But I had schooled myself into contentment, for I believed you married." Ethne ever so slightly flinched, and he himself recognised that he had spoken in a voice overloud, so that it had something almost of brutality.
"Do I hurt you ?" he continued.

"I am sorry.

But let me speak the whole truth out, I cannot afford reticence, I want you to know the first and last of it.

I say now that I love you.

Yes, but I could have said it with equal truth five years ago.