“Lieutenant Dudleigh, save me.”
“Oh, great Heaven!” said a voice like that of the one whom Edith knew as Lieutenant Dudleigh—“oh, great Heaven! it's too much.”
“Oh ho!” cried Leon: “so you're going to blubber too, are you? Mind, now, it's all right if you are only true.”
“Oh, Leon, how you wring my heart!” cried the other, in a low, tremulous voice.
“Lieutenant Dudleigh!” cried Edith again. “Oh, my friend, answer me! Tell me that it is all a lie. Tell me—”
But Lieutenant Dudleigh flung himself on the stone pavement, and groaned and sobbed convulsively.
“Come,” said Leon, stooping and lifting him up; “you understand all this. Don't you go on blubbering in this fashion. I don't mind her and you mustn't. Come, you tell her, for she'll keep yelling after you all night till you do.”
Lieutenant Dudleigh rose at this, and leaned heavily upon Leon's arm.
“You were not—married—to—to—me,” said he at last.
“What! Then you too were false all along!” said Edith, in a voice that seemed to come from a broken heart.