Her heart being too full to answer him, she could only press his hand, and leave it to him to understand.
Faithful to his promise, he delivered Katherine into the keeping of her guardian before nine o'clock. Both declared that they had had a delightful day, and Madame Bernstein expressed her joy at hearing it. It seemed to Browne, however, that there was an air of suppressed excitement about her on this particular evening which he could not understand. When he bade them good-bye he returned to his hotel, feeling that he had come to the end of the happiest day of all his life.
Next morning he was standing in the hall preparatory to going out, when his servant approached him and handed him a note. One glance at the address was sufficient to tell him from whom it came. He had only seen the handwriting once before, but every letter had been engraved upon his heart. He tore it open, delighted at receiving it, yet wondering at her reason for communicating with him.
"Dear love," it began, "when you asked me the other day to be your wife, I tried so hard to make you see that what you wished was quite impossible. Yesterday we were so happy together; and now I have had some news which makes me see, even more clearly than I did then, that I have no right to let you link your life with mine. Hard as it is for me to have to say it, I have no choice left but to do so. You must forget me; and, if you can, forgive me. But remember always this promise that I give you: if I cannot marry you, no other man shall ever call me wife.—KATHERINE PETROVITCH."
Browne stood for some moments, like a man dazed, in the hall among the crowd of happy tourists, holding the letter in his hand, and staring straight before him. His whole being seemed numbed and dead. He could not understand it; he could not even realise that she was attempting to put herself out of his life for ever.
"There must be some mistake," he whispered to himself; and then added: "She admits that she loves me, and yet she wants to give me up. I will not allow myself to think that it can be true. I must go to her at once, and see her, and hear it from her own lips before I will believe."
He thereupon went out into the street, called a cab, and set off for the Rue Jacquarie.
CHAPTER XI
When Browne reached the Rue Jacquarie, after his receipt of the letter which had caused him so much pain and consternation, it was to learn that Katherine was not at home, and to find Madame Bernstein in her sitting-room, sniffing vigorously at a bottle of smelling-salts, and on the verge of hysterics. Seeing Browne, she sprang to her feet with a cry that was half one of relief, and half of fear.