"Just so. She lives at Loring. Edith, I love you so much that I wonder whether I may tell you the great secret of my life?"
"Of course you may. I love secrets; and I specially love the secrets of those who love me." She said this with a voice perfectly clear, and a face without a sign of disappointment; but her little dream had already been dissipated. She knew the secret as well as though it had been told.
"I was engaged to marry her."
"And you will marry her?"
"It was broken off,—when I thought that I should be forced to go to India. The story is very long, and very sad. It is my own father who has ruined me. But I will tell it you some day." Then he told it all, as he was sitting there with his cigar in his hand. Stories may seem to be very long, and yet be told very quickly.
"But you will go back to her now?" said Edith.
"She has not waited for me."
"What do you mean?"
"They tell me that she is to be married to a—to a—certain Mr. Gilmore."
"Already!"