‘Ah, Chloe, to give one’s life! And it is your happiness I have sought more than your favor.’
‘I believe it; but I have not liked the means. You leave us to-morrow?’
‘It seems to me that to-morrow is the term.’
Her face clouded. ‘That tells me a very uncertain promise.’
‘You looked forth to a month of happiness—meaning a month of delusion. The delusion expires to-night. You will awaken to see your end of it in the morning. You have never looked beyond the month since the day of his arrival.’
‘Let him not be named, I supplicate you.’
‘Then you consent that another shall be sacrificed for you to enjoy your state of deception an hour longer?’
‘I am not deceived, sir. I wish for peace, and crave it, and that is all I would have.’
‘And you make her your peace-offering, whom you have engaged to serve! Too surely your eyes have been open as well as mine. Knot by knot—I have watched you—where is it?—you have marked the points in that silken string where the confirmation of a just suspicion was too strong for you.’
‘I did it, and still I continued merry?’ She subsided from her scornfulness on an involuntary ‘Ah!’ that was a shudder.