“Very much more,” he said, with earnestness which did not rob his voice of its pleasant tone. “I am disposed to think that everything has been a jest for a good many years, except that one hope. Do you mean that the hope must be vain?”
“My good, kind cousin! It is so hard to say it. I thought I had made it clear to you, that you understood.”
“What should I have understood, Isabel?”
“That I am not free. I have given my promise.”
He relinquished her hand, after pressing it, and said, with half a smile:
“Then I can only envy him, whoever he may be.”
There was a motion behind the bushes, a rustling as of some one moving away. Robert looked round, but could see no one. Isabel hastily quitted him.