The two friends parted at the gate, Madelaine refusing to go in.
“No,” she said; “they will be expecting me at home.”
They kissed, and then stood holding one another’s hands, both wanting to relieve their full hearts, but dreading to begin. Hardly a word had been spoken on their way back, and such words as had been said were upon indifferent subjects.
But now the moment for parting had come, and they gazed wistfully in each other’s eyes.
Louise was the first to break the painful since.
“Maddy, dear, ought we not to confide in each other?”
“Ah!” exclaimed Madelaine, with a sigh of relief that the constraint was over. “Yes, dear. Did Mr Pradelle propose to you?”
“Yes.”
“And you told him it was impossible?”
“Yes. What did my brother want to say?”