"Have I forfeited your confidence?"
"No. Lennox. I have an indestructible faith in your honor."
Her clear, truthful eyes assured him she acquitted him of all intention to violate in any jot or tittle the forms of his allegiance.
"You deem me incapable of intentionally betraying your noble trust?"
"I do—indeed I do."
"My peerless Leo, have you ceased to love me?"
She shut her eyes an instant, and the delicate, flower face blanched; the treacherous lips quivered:
"No."
"Who has supplanted me in your heart, for once I know it was all my own?"
"Lennox, you are still more to me than all the world beside; but I ask time, I must be free at present. Let me go away untrammelled; consider yourself as unfettered, as before our engagement, and when the year expires, if you deem me absolutely necessary to your happiness, you can readily ask a renewal of your bonds, and I can be sure by that time whether my happiness depends upon becoming your wife. After to-day I shall not wear your ring; and if, while away, I send it back to you, interpret it as a final decision that in the future we can only be very faithful and attached friends. I have sadly mistaken your character if you refuse me release from a compact which I now certainly desire to cancel."