You have always known my faults, and been less charitable towards them than anyone else.

I should have been a scoundrel indeed had I asked you to sacrifice yourself." She sat quite still, and was breathing quietly now.
"So I came to talk it over with you--as old friends, as if we were two men." "Which we are not," put in Isabella, with her bitter laugh; and God knows what she meant.
"We were placed in an impossible position by being thus asked to marry against our will.

I did not ever think of you in that way--think of loving you, I mean.

And you have made it plain enough, of course, that you do not love me.

On the contrary--" "Of course," she echoed, in a queer, tired voice.