"Now that is not at all a pretty speech," interrupts Dulce, sweetly; "so you sha'n't finish it. Come here directly and give me a little kiss, and don't be cross."
This decides everything. He comes here directly, and gives her a little kiss, and isn't a bit cross.
"Why shouldn't you defy him and marry me?" says Roger, defiantly. "What right has he to extort such a promise from you? Once we were man and wife he would be powerless."
"But there is my word—I swore to him," returns she, earnestly. "I cannot forget that. It was an understanding, a bargain."
"Well, but," begins he again; and then he sees something in the little, pale, but determined face gazing pathetically up into his that deters him from further argument. She will be quite true to her word once pledged, he knows that; and though the knowledge is bitter to him, yet he respects her so highly for it, that he vows to himself he will no longer strive to tempt her from her sense of right. Lifting one of her hands, he lays it upon his lips, as though to keep himself by her dear touch from further speech.
"Never mind," he says, caressing her soft fingers tenderly. "We may be able to baffle him yet, and even if not, we can be happy together in spite of him. Can we not. I know I can." Drawing her closer to him, he whispers gently,
"A smile of thine shall make my bliss!"
After a while it occurs to them that they ought to return to the drawing-room and the prosaic humdrumedness of everyday life. It is wonderful how paltry everything has become in their sight, how it is dwarfed and stunted by comparison with the great light of love that is surrounding them. All outside this mist seems lost in a dull haze, seems pale, expressionless.
Opening the library-door with slow, reluctant fingers, they almost stumble against a figure crouching near the lintel. This figure starts into nervous life at their appearance, and, muttering something inaudible in a heavy indistinct tone, shuffles away from them, and is lost to sight round a corner of the corridor.
"Surely that was old Gregory," says Dulce, after a surprised pause.