“Yes,” she answered frankly, “for it was a promise given unconditionally and for all time.”
“And how soon shall it be redeemed, Britomarte?”
“As soon as you please—after you have heard something that I have to tell you. Justin, you have heard a ‘secret’ in my family history darkly hinted?”
“Yes; and I have heard you plainly assert that such a secret existed. And I have told you that let it be what it might, it could not affect my love and esteem for you, or my earnest desire to make you my wife.”
“Thanks, warmest thanks for your generous trust in me, Justin. The secret indeed was none of mine; nor has it turned out to be so dark an one as I had dreaded. Fortunately it cannot affect us in any manner. But you shall hear it, if only that you may know how it was that I grew up to be a man-hater!”
“I always supposed that there must have been some deep wrong and suffering at the bottom of all your man-hatred.”
“A long succession of wrongs and sufferings! But you shall hear,” she said. “There really would seem to have been a spell laid upon the women of our race; for as far back as we can follow household history, every woman of our blood, from mother to daughter, has married miserably.”
“I hope that your marriage will break the spell, Britomarte.”
“I know that it will, dear Justin. But this curse really followed or seemed to follow us from generation to generation.”
“And is there no tradition connected with it?” smiled Justin.