But the reason cannot come to you from my lips."
He leaned forward, half kneeling at her feet, and she permitted him to
clasp her hand within both his own. "Tell me, at least, this--is it
some one else? Is it Hampton?"
She smiled at him through a mist of tears, a smile the sad sweetness of
which he would never forget. "In the sense you mean, no. No living
man stands between us, not even Bob Hampton."
"Does he know why this cannot be?"
"He does know, but I doubt if he will ever reveal his knowledge;
certainly not to you. He has not told me all, even in the hour when he
thought himself dying. I am convinced of that. It is not because he
dislikes you, Lieutenant Brant, but because he knew his partial
revealment of the truth was a duty he owed us both."
There was a long, painful pause between them, during which neither
ventured to look directly at the other.
"You leave me so completely in the dark," he said, finally; "is there
no possibility that this mysterious obstacle can ever be removed?"
"None. It is beyond earthly power--there lies between us the shadow of
a dead man."
He stared at her as if doubting her sanity.
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