The servant retired. Raven turned to Gabrielle again, but stopped, in concern and surprise, as he caught sight of her face.
"What ails you?" he said. "You have suddenly turned so deadly pale. It is only some important message from the capital which is to fall into no hands but mine; some official matter, nothing more. It might have come at a more opportune time, truly."
Gabrielle had indeed turned very white. That knock, coming just at the moment when the decisive "yes" was hovering on her lips, thrilled her as the portent of some coming evil. She herself knew not why, at that announcement, her thoughts flew back to George and to his words at parting. He was living in the capital now. A pang shot through her. Was there some plot on foot to injure the Baron?
"I will go," she said hastily. "You must receive this courier. Let me go."
Raven clasped her in his arms again.
"And will you leave me without giving me an answer? Am I still to live on, doubting and fearing lest that other should come between us again? You shall go, but speak first the one word I long for. It will take but a second to say it. Only one word, 'yes!' I will not keep you longer."
"Give me till to-morrow," the girl besought with piteous, pathetic entreaty. "Do not ask me to decide now, do not force my consent from me. Give me till to-morrow, Arno, I implore you!"
A flash of joy lighted up the Baron's features as, for the first time, he heard her pronounce his name without the adjunct of that formal word which recalled the relation and the guardian. Quickly and fervently he pressed his lips to her brow.
"It shall be so. I will force nothing from you. I will believe the language of your eyes alone, and content myself with that. Until to-morrow, then, for one short night, farewell, my Gabrielle!"
He walked with her through the adjoining room to a door which opened on the corridor, and the young girl went hastily out. Before she had reached the end of the passage, a bell sounded in the Baron's study, the signal for the courier to appear. Truly, Arno Raven had but little leisure to devote to his love-dreams. He was inexorably, ruthlessly summoned back to the hard reality of this prosaic world.