"But I don't believe it," repeated Milly in the stubborn misery of hopeless innocence.
"Ask yourself, then, what possible reason I could have in coming to you—except to save you?"
"Wait!" cried the girl angrily, "I can't hear—wait!" Picking up a shawl from a chair, she flung it with an impatient gesture over the cage, and turning immediately from the extinguished bird, took up his sentence where he had broken off.
"To save me?" she repeated, "you mean from marriage?"
"From a marriage that would be no marriage. Am I right in suspecting that you meant to go away with him to-night?"
She bowed her head—all the violent spirit gone out of her. "I was ready to go to-night," she answered, like a child that has been hurt and is still afraid of what is to come.
"And you promise me that you will give it up?" he went on gently.
"I don't know—I can't tell—I must see him first," she said, and burst suddenly into tears, hiding her face in her hands with a pathetic, shamed gesture.
Turning away for a moment, he stood blankly staring down into the jar of goldfish. Then, as her sobs grew presently beyond her control, he came back to the chair into which she had dropped and looked with moist eyes at her bowed fair head.
"Before I leave you, will you promise me to give him up?—to forget him if it be possible?" he asked.