He stepped up to where she sat and dropped his voice to a whisper.
"Greta--permit me to say it--I loved you dearly. Would to Heaven I had not! My love was not of yesterday. It was you and I, I and you. That was the only true marriage possible to either of us from world's end to world's end. But Paul came between us; and when I saw you give yourself to the wrong man--"
"You say you come to ask pardon for what you said, but you really come to repeat it." So saying, she made a show of leaving the room.
Hugh stood awhile in silence. Then he threw off his faltering tone and drew himself up.
"I have come," he said, "to warn you before it is too late. I have come to say, while it is yet time, never marry my brother, for as sure as God is above us, you will repent it with unquenchable tears if you do."
Greta's eyes flashed with an expression of disdain.
"No," she said; "you have come to threaten me--a sure sign that you yourself have some secret cause for fear."
"Greta, I repeat it, you are marrying the wrong man."
"The right of one who could part you forever with a word."
Greta was sore perplexed. Like a true woman, she would have given half her fortune at that moment to probe this mystery. But her indignation got the better of her curiosity.
"It is true!" he answered. "I could speak the word that would part you wider than the poles asunder."
"Then I challenge you to speak it," she exclaimed.
They faced each other, pale, and with quivering lips.
"It is not my purpose. I have warned you," he said.
"You do not believe your own warning," she answered.
"You have come to me with an idle threat, and fear is written on your own face."
He drew his breath sharply, and did not reply.
He was making for the door. He came back a step.
"Shall I speak the word?" he said. "Can you bear it?"
"Leave me," she said, "and carry your falsehood with you!"
He was gone in an instant. Then her anger cooled directly, and her woman's curiosity came back with a hundred-fold rebound.
"Gracious Heaven! what did he mean?" she thought, and the hot flush mounted to her eyes. She had half a mind to call him back. "Could it be true?" The tears were now rolling down her cheeks. "He has a secret power over Paul--what is it?" She ran to the door. "Hugh! Hugh!" He was gone. The galloping feet of his horse were heard faint in the distance. She went back into the house and sat down, and wept galling tears of pride and vexation.