A tear fell down her pale cheek unheeded. Percival rose to his feet.
"I don't think there is much to tell, is there?" he said. "You mean that you wish to give me up, to throw me over? Is that all?"
His words were calm, but the tone of ironical bitterness in which they were uttered cut Elizabeth to the quick. She lifted her head proudly.
"No," she said, "you are wrong. I wish nothing of the kind."
He stood in an attitude of profound attention, waiting for her to explain. His face wore its old, rigid look: the upright line between his brows was very marked indeed. But he would not speak again.
"Percival," she said—and her tone expressed great pain and profound self-abasement—"when I promised to marry you—someday, you will remember that I never said I loved you. I thought that I should learn to love in time. And so I did—but not—not you."
"And who taught you the lesson that I failed to impart?" asked Percival, with the sneer in his voice which she knew and dreaded.
"Don't ask me," she said, painfully. "It is not fair to ask me that. I did not know until it was too late."
"Until he—whoever he was—asked you to marry him, I suppose? Well, when is the ceremony to take place? Do you expect me to dance at the wedding? Do you think I am going tamely to resign my rights? My God, Elizabeth, is it you who can treat me in this way? Are all women as false as you?"
He struck his foot fiercely against the ground, and walked away from her. When he came back he found her in the same position; white as a statue, with her hands clasped together upon her knee, and her eyes fixed upon the running water.