She waved her hand with a gesture commanding silence.

"Do not seek to comfort me," she said. "You cannot. I have humiliated
myself in vain. I have shown the depth of my heart, the very secrets of
my soul, only that you may laugh at me with your fair-faced Agatha."

"Hush, Coralie; you have no right to say such things; what you have just
said will never pass my lips. I shall not even think of it. You cannot
suspect me of the meanness to talk to Miss Thesiger of anything of the
kind."

She looked at me with a dazed face, as though she could barely grasp my
meaning.

"Tell me it again," she said. "I cannot believe it."

"Listen, Coralie: I love Agatha Thesiger with all my heart, and hope
very soon to make her my wife. I love her so dearly that I have no room
in my heart for even a thought of any other woman."

Her face grew ghastly in its pallor.

"That is sufficient," she said; "now I understand."

"We will both forget what has been said tonight, Coralie; we will never
think of it, but for the future be good cousins and good friends."

"No," she said, proudly; "there can be no friendship between us."