‘Not that only, Cecil,’ said she, for the first time faltering; ‘but except being very good friends, I do not desire that there should be more between us.’
‘No engagement?’
‘No, no engagement. I do not believe there ever was an actual promise, at least on my part. Other people had no right to promise for either of us—and—and, in fact, the present is a good opportunity to end it.’
‘To end it,’ echoed he, in intense bitterness; ‘to end it?’
‘And I should like to have my letters,’ said she calmly, while she took some freshly plucked flowers from a basket on her arm, and appeared to seek for something at the bottom of the basket.
‘I thought you would come down here, Cecil,’ said she, ‘when you had spoken to my uncle. Indeed, I was sure you would, and so I brought these with me.’ And she drew forth a somewhat thick bundle of notes and letters tied with a narrow ribbon. ‘These are yours,’ said she, handing them.
Far more piqued by her cold self-possession than really wounded in feeling, he took the packet without a word; at last he said, ‘This is your own wish—your own, unprompted by others?’
She stared almost insolently at him for answer.
‘I mean, Maude—oh, forgive me if I utter that dear name once more—I mean there has been no influence used to make you treat me thus?’
‘You have known me to very little purpose all these years, Cecil Walpole, to ask me such a question.’