He broke out: "Explain! Explain!" He let her from his arms and she stood away from him, stress on her face. "Oh, there is something I do not understand in this," he cried. "Explain—tell me."
She told it him. "Percival, I was always to marry Rollo," she said.
He stared at her. "How can you mean—always?"
"I should have told you. I knew it."
He pronounced in a terrible voice "Rollo!" Then he said thickly: "What, when you were with me—in those days, those days! You knew it? He had spoken to you then?"
She caught her hands to her bosom in an action of despair. "No, no!" she cried; and then, "Oh, how can I explain?" and then found the word that helped her with force of a thousand words to name her meaning. "It was—holiday," she said.
He remembered it. He remembered, and its memory came like a lamp to guide him. He said slowly, "When Rollo went—I remember you were different. Dora, do you mean it was always arranged you were to marry Rollo?"
She said, "Always—always!"
He cried, "But you loved me!"
She wrung her hands at that, and cried in the most pitiful way, "I thought you would forget. I don't know what I thought. It was holiday. It should not have been. Oh, why must we talk of it?"