"Your promise—what is it?" he laughed. "A promise made in a moment of excitement, made when you did not realise what it meant. You did not think he would die, and since he is dead—what does it avail? That is all gone. It has no meaning. It has no more binding power than a gossamer thread. You must be mine. I was led here that this hour might come. You will be my wife, signorina?"
Still she hesitated, and then the man pleaded again, pleaded with burning words, and as he spoke barriers seemed to break down one by one. Her fear passed away, her heart grew warm again. He seemed to cast a kind of spell on her once more, and she had no desire to refuse him.
"You will be my wife," he said, "you will fulfil the dreams of years, you will bring light and joy into my life—say you will—Olive."
She held out her hand and looked up into his face, and then he caught her in his arms; but even as he did so it seemed as though the dead past came back again, and that it was Leicester, and not the stranger, who held her to his heart.
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE SECOND MEETING OF THE CYNIC AND THE COUNTRYWOMAN
"You'll be back for your lunch, Mr. Ricordo?"
"No, Mrs. Briggs. I'm going for a long walk, a very long walk; I don't know how far."
"But you'll be back for dinner to-night?"