“Then I will not talk so. I will make myself worthy to think of you by—by—thinking of you. For a month, Daireen,—for a month we can only think of each other. It is better that I should not see you until the last tatter of my old self is shred away.”
“It cannot be better that you should go away,” she said. “Why should you go away just as we are so happy?”
“I must go, Daireen,” he said. “I must go—and now. I would to God I could stay! but believe me, I cannot, darling; I feel that I must go.”
“Because you made that stupid promise?” she said.
“That promise is nothing. What is such a promise to me now? If I had never made it I should still go.”
He was looking down at her as he spoke. “Do not ask me to say anything more. There is nothing more to be said. Will you forget me in a month, do you think?”
Was it possible that there was a touch of anxiety in the tone of his question? she thought for an instant. Then she looked into his face and laughed.
“God bless you, Daireen!” he said tenderly, and there was sadness rather than passion in his voice.
“God keep you, Daireen! May nothing but happiness ever come to you!”
He held out his hand to her, and she laid her own trustfully in his.