'Don't be silly, Mary,' persisted the old man; 'you must and shall marry Hew, and there is an end of it!'
'But I have given my promise,' began Mary, feeling weary and desperate.
'Promise, to Captain Falconer? The devil you have! Did he dare exact one?'
'Oh no, no.'
'How then?'
'It came about somehow,' said Mary, as her fitful colour came and went.
'Did you promise—the devil, I'll explode!—to—to—marry him?' asked the general with his back against the mantel-piece.
'No.'
'What the deuce then?
'To love him—and him only,' said Mary, piteously, softly, and in a low voice, ending in a little nervous laugh.