The distance between them was yet considerable, and yet how was it that she seemed to falter in her steps, and suddenly, clasping her heart with both hands, appeared seized with a sort of convulsion? At the same instant she threw a terrified glance on every side, and looked like one prepared for sudden flight. To these emotions, more rapid in their course than it has taken time to describe them, succeeded a cold, determined calm, in which her features regained their usual expression, though marked by a paleness like death.
The stranger came slowly forward, examining the trees and flowers as he passed along, and peering with his double eye-glass to read the names attached to whatever was rarest. Affecting to be gathering flowers for a bouquet, she stooped frequently, till the other came near, and then, as he removed his hat to salute her, she threw back her veil and stood, silent, before him.
“Madam! madam!” cried he, in a voice of such intense agony as showed that he was almost choked for utterance. “How is this, madam?” said he, in a tone of indignant demand. “How is this?”
“I have really no explanation to offer, sir,” said she, in a cold, low voice. “My astonishment is great as your own; this meeting is not of my seeking. I need scarcely say so much.”
“I do not know that!—by Heaven I do not!” cried he, in a passion.
“You are surely forgetting, sir, that we are no longer anything to each other, and thus forgetting the deference due to me as a stranger?”
“I neither forget nor forgive!” said he, sternly.
“Happily, sir, you will not be called upon to do either. I no longer bear your name—”
“Oh that you had never borne it!” cried he, in agony.
“There is at least one sentiment we agree in, sir,—would that I never had!” said she; and a slight—very slight—tremor shook the words as she spoke them.