And, indeed, it would have been hard for him to tell.

In telling such a story he would have been cautioning her that it was useless for her to love him--and this he could not bring himself to do.

And he was not sure even now that she had not learned the fact from her sister.

"I hope not," he said.

In all that he was saying he knew that his words were tame and impotent in comparison with hers, which seemed to him to mean so much.