"You have escaped from everybody," he says to her, in some surprise, Dulce being a person very little given to solitude or her own society undiluted.
"It appears I have not," returns she, bitterly.
"Well, I shan't trouble you long; I can take myself off in no time," he says, good-humoredly, drawing to one side to let her pass.
"No—no; you can stay with me if you care to," she says, wearily, ashamed of her petulance.
"Care!" he says, reproachfully; and then, coming nearer to her, "you are unhappy! Something has happened!" he says, quickly, "what is it?"
"Nothing unhappy," says Dulce, in a dear, soft voice; "certainly not that. Something very different; something, indeed, I have been longing and hoping for, for weeks, for months, nay, all my life, I think."
"And—" says Stephen.
"I have broken off my engagement with Roger."
A great, happy gleam awakes within his dark eyes. Instinctively he takes a step nearer to her, then checks himself, and draws his breath quickly.
"Are you sure?" he says, in a carefully calm tone, "are you sure you have done wisely?—I mean, will this be for your own good?"