Still lower the fair head drooped, but she answered only with a falling tear.
"I told you the other day that we should be strangers through life, and why, I must not tell, although perhaps your woman's heart may whisper, and yet not condemn me for that which, Heaven knows, I have struggled against—alas, in vain! Do not turn from me. I would not breathe a word to you that in all honor you should not hear, although my heart seems bursting with its longing, and I would yield my soul with rapture from its frail casket, for but one moment's right to give its secret wings. I will bid you farewell to-morrow"—
"To-morrow!"
"Yes, the doctor says that the sea air will do me good, and an occasion offers to-morrow which I shall embrace. It will be like setting forth upon a journey through endless solitudes, where my only companions will be a memory and a sorrow."
He paused a while, but continued with an effort at composure.
"Our hearts are tyrants to us, Miss Weems, and will not, sometimes, be tutored into silence. I see that I have moved, but I trust not offended you."
"You have not offended," she murmured, but in so low a tone that perhaps the words were lost in the faint moan of the swaying foliage.
"What I have said," he continued earnestly, and taking her hand with a gentle but respectful pressure, "has been spoken as one who is dying speaks with his fleeting breath; for evermore my lips shall be shackled against my heart, and the past shall be sealed and avoided as a forbidden theme. We are, then, good friends at parting, are we not?"
"Yes."
"And, believe me, I shall be happiest when I think that you are happy—for you will be happy."