“No; only three.”
“Well, it is like twenty to me. I tell you I feel as if I had come to the end of my life.”
“You must not say that—believe me you must not. Time will do wonders for you. You have a long life before you yet, and great opportunities.”
But although she spoke bravely she could hardly succeed in steadying her voice. All the old feeling, all the feeling which had lain dormant within her since that stray glimpse on the river, was surging into activity. Philip Orlebar, crushed, saddened, all the elasticity burned out of his young life by the searing irons of sorrow, reigned king in her heart, as Philip Orlebar, sanguine, buoyant, light-hearted, could never have done. And the change, sad, infinitely deplorable as it was, had solidified and stamped his character, not altogether to the disadvantage of that possession. But for that one tremendous impediment, in all human probability lifelong, Alma would have needed no pressure to have returned love for love in full and abundant measure.
“Great opportunities?” he echoed. “Yes, I may have had once—before you condemned me unheard. Great Heaven! you had no pity—no consideration for me then, and now it is too late.”
It was cruel. The tears which she had striven so heroically to repress brimmed, overflowed. They fell, each shining drop burning into the heart of the spectator as a drop of molten lead. And upon the blue radiant lake the measured paddle-stroke of the steamer beat strong and joyous, the laughter and chat of the holiday-seekers rang out light and cheery.
“Darling love—love of my life—my only love!” he uttered, in heartbroken tones, “what am I to say? Why—why were you so hasty? And now it is too late.”
“Yes, I was hasty; I know it now,” she replied. “But I tried to make amends. Oh, Philip! why did you not answer—take some notice of my letter?”
“Your—what?”
His face had turned deathly white. Already he saw that some horrible contretemps had served to divert from him a life’s happiness.