Page:That Lass o' Lowrie's.djvu/170

148 "You have saved me the trouble of putting into words a feeling I have not words to explain," he said. "Perhaps that is the reason why I have not spoken openly before. Grace,"—abruptly,—"I have fancied there was a cloud between us."

"Between us!" said Grace, eagerly and warmly. "No, no! That was a poor fancy indeed; I could not bear that."

"Nor I," impetuously. But I cannot be explicit even now, Grace—even my thoughts are not explicit. I have been bewildered and—yes, amazed—amazed at finding that I had gone so far without knowing it. Surely there never was a passion—if it is really a passion—that had so little to feed upon."

"So little!" echoed Grace.

Derrick got up and began to walk across the floor.

"I have nothing—nothing, and I am beset on every side."

There is something extraordinary in the blindness of a man with an absorbing passion. Absorbed by his passion for one woman, Grace was blind to the greatest of inconsistencies in his friend's speech and manner. Absorbed in his passion for another woman, Derrick forgot for the hour everything concerning his friend's love for Anice Barholm.

Suddenly he paused in his career across the room.

"Grace," he said, "I cannot trust myself; but I can trust you, I cannot be unselfish in this—you can. Tell me what I am to do—answer me this question, though God knows, it would be a hard one for any man to answer. Perhaps I ought not to ask it—perhaps I ought to have decision enough to answer it myself without troubling you. But how can I? And you who are so true to