"A secret marriage?" she asked, terrified at this strange vista which his fiery imagination was conjuring up before her.
"You refuse? . . ." he asked hoarsely.
"No! no! . . . but . . ."
"Then you do not love me, Suzanne."
The coolness in his tone struck a sudden chill to her heart. She felt the clasp of his arms round her relax, she felt rather than saw that he withdrew markedly from her.
"Ah! forgive me! forgive me!" she murmured, stretching her little hands out to him in a pathetic and childlike appeal. "I have never deceived anyone in my life before. . . . How could I live a lie? . . . married to you, yet seemingly a girl. . . . Whilst in three months. . . ."
She paused in her eagerness, for he had jumped to his feet and was now standing before her, a rigid, statuesque figure, with head bent and arms hanging inert by his side.
"You do not love me, Suzanne," he said with an infinity of sadness, which went straight to her own loving heart, "else you would not dream of thus condemning me to three months of exquisite torture. . . . I have had my answer. . . . Farewell, my gracious lady . . . not mine, alas! but another man's . . . and may Heaven grant that he love you well . . . not as I do, for that were impossible. . . ."
His voice had died away in a whisper, which obviously was half-choked with tears. She, too, had risen while he spoke, all her hesitation gone, her heart full of reproaches against herself, and of love for him.
"What do you mean?" she asked trembling.