He took up her words again with magisterial emphasis. "You don't think
so. Well, there is every reason to suppose you wouldn't. You weren't
happy before, were you?"

She gripped her courage with immense effort. "I haven't been
happy--since," she said.

He accepted the statement without an instant's discomfiture. "I know you
haven't. I realized that the moment I saw you. You have been suffering
the tortures of the damned because you're in a positive hell of
indecision. Oh, I know all about it." His hand moved a little upon her
shoulder; it almost seemed to caress her. "I haven't studied human nature
all these years for nothing. I know you're in a perfect fever of doubt,
and it'll go on till you're married. What's the good of it? Why torture
yourself like this when the way to happiness lies straight before you?
Are you hoping against hope that something may yet turn up to prevent our
marriage? Would you be happy if it did? Answer me!"

But she shrank from answering, sitting with her hands clasped tightly
before her and her eyes downcast like a prisoner awaiting sentence.
"I don't know--what I want," she told him, miserably. "I feel--as
if--whatever I do--will be wrong."

"That's just it," said Fletcher Hill, as if that were the very admission
he had been waiting for. And then he did what for him was a very curious
thing. He went down upon one knee on the dusty floor, bringing his face
on a level with hers, clasping her tense hands between his own. "You
don't trust yourself, and you won't trust me," he said. "Isn't that it?
Or something like it?"