This was the moment to invite him to come again, but the words froze on her lips.
His face had grown very pale, and he looked at her with great, inquiring, expectant eyes.
"I hope we shall meet again," he said.
"I hope so, too," she replied frigidly.
He brushed her hand with his lips and was gone.
The end--the end! And all her fault. Happiness had looked in upon her, had lightly laid its hand in blessing on her brow, and then flown away, leaving nothing but this pain, a pain more intolerable than any she had ever known. It clutched at her throat and tore her heart like a physical pain.
During the night that followed she concocted a thousand plans by which she could contrive to find him out and meet him. As a scholar, he would probably be a constant visitor to the library. She would go there to read and study, in the hopes of coming across him. But, simpler still, why shouldn't she write to him?
"I don't love you," she would write. "Why should I love you when I hardly know you? But I feel that I am destined to have some influence in your life, and so ..."
Finally she rejected all her plans, disgusted with her own lack of dignity. No; Lilly Czepanek would not throw herself thus at any man's head.
She became tormented once more with restlessness.