But Alice stepped back and answered: "No, Hugh, that would be wrong.

It may be I shall never come to love you save as I love you now, but I'll try--I will try," and unmindful of her charge to him, Alice parted the damp curls clustering around his forehead, and looked into his face with an expression which made his heart bound and throb with the sudden hope that even now she loved him better than she supposed.
It was growing very late, and the clock in the adjoining room struck one ere Alice bade Hugh good-night, saying to him: "No one must know of this.

We'll be just the same to each other as we have been." "Yes, just the same, if that can be," Hugh answered, and so they parted..