Ah, if she only loved me! I might yet find some way to evade with honor the unwelcome match my father had arranged for me. But she did not; so there was an end of that. I must go on to the end, even as I had promised. But it was a bitter thing!
“Why that profound sigh, M. de Tavernay?” asked my comrade, looking up at me with dancing eyes, quite in her old manner. “Surely we are in no present danger?”
“I was thinking not of the present but of the future,” I answered.
“You think, then, that danger lies before us?”
“Undoubtedly!”
“But why cross the bridge till we come to it?”
“Because,” I answered, “since the bridge must be crossed it is as well to do it now as any time.”
“But perhaps it may be avoided—one can never tell.”
“No,” I said gloomily, “it is a destiny not to be escaped.”
“You frighten me!” she cried; but when I glanced at her she looked anything but frightened. “What is it that awaits us? Let me know the worst!”