'By the merest chance.'
'These chances would seem to have occurred too often,' interrupted Roland, greatly ruffled now, yet feeling sick at heart; 'so let us come to an end!'
'By—by parting?' she asked, with pale lips.
'It is easily done; I am going back to the regiment in a little time, and gossips will soon cease to link my name with yours, when you——'
'How cruel of you, Roland!' she said, and she looked at him entreatingly for a moment with her small hands clasped, and then turned away her face.
'It may be merely flirtation or folly that inspires you; but beware, Annot, how you treat me thus, and remember that lovers' quarrels are not always love renewed.'
He felt and feared that a gulf which might never be bridged over was widening suddenly between them. Had she asked him just then, with all his anger, to kiss her once and forgive her, he would have yielded too probably; but the little beauty, all unlike her usually pliant, soft, and clinging self, held haughtily aloof and said:
'Am I to give you back your ring, and relinquish all that it involves?'
'No, Annot, no, no,' exclaimed Roland, not yet prepared for such a climax.
With an angry sob in her slender throat she tried to twist it off, but in vain; and they regarded each other with a curiously mingled expression which they never forgot—he sorrowfully and indignantly; she saucily and defiantly.