“She shall not hear of it from me,” said Agnes. “She shall at least be spared that pain, in addition to the pain of parting from you.”
“She shall be spared ever, that,” said he in a low voice.
“What?”
“I cannot part from her It is too late now.”
“You do not mean that”—
“I mean that I shall marry her.”
A cry came from Agnes before he had quite spoken.
“Ah, you will not be so pitiless,” she said. “You will not do her that injustice. You will not wreck her life, too.”
“I will marry her,” said he doggedly.
“You will marry her to make her happy for a month—happy in a fool's paradise—happy till you begin to think that the face beside you may be the same as the face that watched your brother lying in his blood—that the hand which you caress—Oh, Claude, cannot you see that every day, every hour, she could not but feel that you are nursing a secret that separates you more completely from her than if an ocean were between you? Can you hope to keep that secret from her? Do you know nothing of woman? Claude, she will read your secret in a month.”