I put away all the signs of passion and fastened them down with the clamps of resolution. I would win her yet, let the case be desperate as it would. I could wait for such a victory; and while waiting, fight to hold the love I had already won.
Presently, when she had become less agitated, she called me.
I let her see at once that I had chosen my course.
“I don’t mind what you are going to tell me, it will make no difference,” I said as I sat by her side.
She smiled but shook her head. “You do not know yet,” she answered. “It is hopeless and impossible.”
“You do not know me, or you would not use that word.”
“I remember what you said about that on the hill this morning; but this—I am so sorry, Burgwan.” She paused and then said very steadily: “I am the promised wife of another man.”
The words hit me hard, each with a sting of its own. I had looked for anything but this; and I needed all my resolution not to wince and shew the pain they inflicted, but to meet her steady gaze with one equally steady. I succeeded and forced a smile as I answered.
“I had not expected that,” I said, quietly. “But in fact I don’t think I know what I did expect. In any case there is a great difference between a wife and a promised wife, Mademoiselle.”
“I shall be his wife within the present month.”