“I must see your mother,” she began.
“I will see her for you. I will tell her everything and you shall see she will be for us. But if she should not, I warn you, Christine, I will not give you up for any one alive.”
“Listen to me,” said Christine calmly. “This is what you must do. You must go to your mother and tell her there is some one that you love. Tell her as fully and freely as you choose. Convince her of the truth and strength of it as thoroughly as you can, and tell her that woman loves you in return, but has refused to marry you, for reasons which, if she would like to hear them, that woman herself will lay before her. I cannot let you do it for me,” she went on earnestly. “I know you would wish to spare me this, but only a woman’s tongue could tell that story of misery, and only a woman’s heart could understand it. You think she will love me for my misfortunes, as you have done in your great, generous heart. I do not dare to think it, but I will put it to the test. You must promise me to tell her nothing except just what I have told you. Do you promise this?”
“I promise it, upon my honor; but remember, if my mother should decide against me, I do not give you up.”
“No, but I will give you up.”
“Christine!” he cried. “And yet you say you love me!”
“Oh, yes, I say I love you—and you know whether it is true.”
She stood in front of him and looked him firmly in the face, but the look of her clear eyes was so full of crowding, overwhelming sorrow that love, for a while, seemed to have taken flight.
In vain he tried to put his hopeful spirit into her. She only shook her head and showed him a face of deep, unhoping sorrow.