"Dora, they are forcing you to marry him."
"I was always to, Percival. I was always to."
"You want to?"
"Well, I was always to."
Her voice was that of a child whose young intelligence by no means can take a lesson. Sufficient to one such that the thing is so as he sees it and cannot be otherwise; and to her sufficient—trained and schooled and cloistered for that sufficiency—that, as she said, she was always to. Ah, she had had holiday, but not enough to loose her; she had tossed among the flowers, but had fluttered home at nights. Now the mate she toyed with was knocking at her prison; she could see and could remember, but she could not fly. Quickly after the end of their months together, and very certainly after Rollo's return, she had discovered what long she had dimly seen. Clearly the purpose and the walls and the end of her training had been presented to her. Passively she had accepted them.
But how explain it? How explain what herself she did not know? She looked from night that came stealing up the valley to his face that had a shade of night. She heard the wind that now was in gusty beat against them, and above the sound could hear his breathing. She could only wring her hands and say again: "Percival, I was always to;" and when he did not answer, "Let me go now, Percival."
He answered her then. "You loved me. How can you do this? You loved me. Why did you not tell me?"
She cried as if she were distracted, "Oh, oh! I asked you not to leave me. It was a long time. You were not here."
He caught on to that. "I am here now. It shall not be. Dora, I am here now!"
"It is done," she said. "It is done!"