“Let me try it again,” she said in a low voice; but he shook his head.
“No; you are tired, I can see, and I am out of voice.”
“I am tired,” she said, with a smile that cut him to the heart. “And I think I’ll say good-night.”
He went and opened the door for her, and, after bidding the rest “Good-night,” she passed him with bent head, and without giving him her hand.
When she had gained her own room she flung herself down beside the bed, and hid her face in her hands.
“Three weeks! Three weeks!” she moaned. Then she rose with a desperate laugh, and sang softly, with the delight in self-torture which a woman alone can feel:
“If you had loved me years ago,
When Time was young and Fate was free,
What happiness we now should know!
Love came too late for you and me.”