"To-morrow," he whispered, "to-morrow, my darling, at this time—though the world won't know it—still you will be my wife."
A strange feeling thrilled Elizabeth. She could not have told if it were pleasure, or some involuntary presentiment. But aloud she repeated mechanically: "Yes, I shall be your wife."
"You won't fail me, dearest," he said, scanning her face eagerly. "You won't break your word? You have promised—you won't fail me?"
"No," Elizabeth answered, "I have promised—I won't fail you."
And yet the thought crossed her mind irrelevantly, that she had broken a promise once already.
She left him and went home through the stillness and the fast gathering shadows of the evening. The days were already growing shorter. She noted the fact mechanically; noted too that the deep glowing crimson of the sunset foretold a hot day for the morrow. She entered the house and looked in at the dining-room; the table was set out for tea with all the wonted care. Her aunts sat each at one end; they were neither of them eating and both had red eyes. In the centre of the table stood Elizabeth's favorite cake—the kind with the raisins in it, which she used to beg for as a child, and which was reserved either as a reward for virtue, or for consolation in some childish trouble. Now in this trouble that was so far from childish, poor Miss Joanna had bethought herself of the old attention, and brought out the favorite cake as the only means of comfort within her power. Elizabeth could not see it without a lump in her throat.
She smoothed her ruffled hair before the glass and came in quietly to her usual place at the table. They looked up nervously at her entrance, but neither spoke; they did not reproach her with being late or ask where she had been. Miss Joanna pressed upon her the various dainties, reminding her that she had eaten no dinner; otherwise the meal was a silent one. It was not till near the end of it that Elizabeth spoke in a strained harsh voice unlike her own.
"Paul is going away." That was what she said. "He—has an engagement to go abroad. He goes to New York to-morrow. I—I hope you are satisfied."
And then she stopped, for the look of tremulous relief on both their faces was almost more than she could bear. The raisins in her favorite cake seemed suddenly to choke her. She began to doubt, after all, whether she would go to Cranston the next day.