"What makes you think she is in love with another man?" asked he, in a low voice.
"Oh, I know it," said I, stung to the utterance by the knowledge that he thought I meant with himself. "She is engaged to him."
My heart almost stopped beating, waiting to see where the shaft would strike.
It struck home. "Engaged!" muttered he.
"Yes," I went on, quickly, perhaps lest I should repent of my wicked purpose. "She is engaged to Captain Forrester. They do not meet, because my parents wished it to be kept secret for a year. But they love one another."
Oh, Joyce, Joyce! how could I have said it? A hundred excuses came swarming into my head, but in every one of them there was a sting, for through the buzz of them all came a strong, clear voice telling me that the man whom Joyce really loved stood at my side. I knew it, I knew it, and yet I let him think that she loved some one else; I let him go away with an aching heart. That was my love for him—that was my love for Joyce, who, until he crossed my world, had been all my world to me.
I remember nothing more. I suppose he said something and I answered it, or else I said something and he answered it; but I remember nothing—nothing until I saw him thread his way down among the aspens on the cliff and disappear onto the desolate marsh-land.
That I remember. I often see it happening. The moon still hung behind that veil of gray cloud; the breeze still crept chill among the trees, piercing to the heart; the faint white light showed a very wide world, wider far than in the brightness of day; there seemed to be a great deal of room for longing and heartache. But was the heartache in it all mine? In a moment the horror of what I had done came home to me. I who suffered had made others suffer.
"Oh, come back! come back!" I cried, in an agony of grief, hurrying down the cliff till I stood over the marsh, waving my arms wildly in the dark night. "Come back! I have something more to say."
But he was gone. The moon was the same moon looking sadly on; the world was the same world as it had been ten minutes ago, but he was gone. And who was to blame?