"Well, how shall we tell him?"
Then a thought came to me, and I felt all over a desperate thrill of excitement.
"Will you do nothing until to-morrow?" I said. "I have an idea which I will tell to no one. Let us go back to Claridge's now, and do not come and see me again until to-morrow at twelve. Then, if this has failed we will say good-bye. It is a desperate chance."
"And you won't tell me what it is?"
"No. Please trust me; it is my life as well as yours, remember."
"My queen!" he said. "Yes, I will do that, or anything else you wish, only never, never good-bye. I am a man, after all, and have numbers of influential relations. I can do something else in life just be a Guardsman, and we shall get enough money to live quite happily on, though we might not be very grand people. I will never say good-bye—do you hear? Promise me you will never say it, either."
I was silent.
"Evangeline, darling!" he cried in anguish, his eyebrows right up in the old way, while two big tears welled up in his beautiful eyes. "My God! won't you answer me?"
"Yes, I will," I said, and I threw all my reserve to the winds, and flung my arms round his neck, passionately.
"I love you with my heart and soul, and pray to God we shall never say good-bye."