"I can make no other." He still stood before her,—with gloomy and almost angry brow, could she have seen him; and then he thought he would ask her whether there was any other love which had brought about her scorn for him. It did not occur to him, at the first moment, that in doing so he would insult and injure her.
"At any rate I am not flattered by a reply which is at once so decided," he began by saying.
"Oh! Mr. Orme, do not make me more unhappy—"
"But perhaps I am too late. Perhaps—" Then he remembered himself and paused. "Never mind," he said, speaking to himself rather than to her. "Good-bye, Miss Staveley. You will at any rate say good-bye to me. I shall go at once now."
"Go at once! Go away, Mr. Orme?"
"Yes; why should I stay here? Do you think that I could sit down to table with you all after that? I will ask your brother to explain my going; I shall find him in his room. Good-bye."
She took his hand mechanically, and then he left her. When she came down to dinner she looked furtively round to his place and saw that it was vacant.