“It is out of my own sorrow I have given you to drink,” said she, bitterly. “You are a man, and have a man's career before you, with all its changeful chances of good or evil; I, as a woman, must trust my hazard of happiness to a home, and very soon I shall have none.”
He tried to speak, but a sense of choking stopped him, and thus, without a word on either side, they walked along several minutes.
“May,” said he, at last, “do you remember the line of the poet,—
“'Death and absence differ but in name'?”
“I never heard it before; but why do you ask me?”
“I was just thinking that in parting moments like this, as on a death-bed, one dares to speak of things which from some sense of shame one had never dared to touch on before. Now, I want to carry away with me over the seas the thought that your lot in life is assured, and your happiness, so far as any one's can be, provided for. To know this, I must force a confidence which you may not wish to accord me; but bethink you, dear May, that you will never see me more. Will you tell me if I ask about him?”
“About whom?” asked she, in unfeigned astonishment, for never were her thoughts less directed to Alfred Layton.
“May,” said he, almost angrily, “refuse me if you will, but let there be no deceit between us. I spoke of Layton.”
“Ask what you please, and I will answer you,” said she, boldly.
“He is your lover, is he not? You have engaged yourself to him?”