She was silent. The tears hung on her cheeks.
"I have lost all besides," said he, simply, "but I have kept that, and will keep it." He paused, and continued: "If Maud were different, other things might also be different, but you know your sister; to break faith with her would be—she could not endure it. I have taught her to believe that I am wholly hers, and she has never seen nor guessed that—that a change has come. And however acutely Maud would feel that, if she knew—which, so help me God, she never shall—she would be infinitely more distressed, more humiliated—her pride—her self-respect—no, it is not to be thought of." He was now walking on alone, and so fast that she could scarcely keep pace with him. She could catch only broken utterances—some perhaps not meant for her. It appeared as though he had forgotten her presence.
"Love? Honour?
"Love lost, much lost.
Honour lost, all lost."
Honour is not lost—not yet. Happiness? That's nothing. Life is short, and there's another life to look to. A coward turns his back on the fight. A deserter falls out of the ranks. The strong should hold up the weak"—suddenly he looked round for her—"Leo?"
Leo meekly raised her eyes, overmastered, dumb. It was the hardest moment of Paul's life. One look, one word between them, and she would have been dragged down into the whirlpool from which it was his part to save her. A great convulsion shook his frame, and he set his teeth and swore, then drew her gently to his side.
"My little sister must forget all this. It is a bad dream and it is over and past. She must promise me——"
"What—Paul?"
"She must promise me—solemnly—before God, in Whose Presence we are"—he looked up, the sky was clear and shining overhead—"that she will never—mark me, Leo, never—as long as life lasts, allow herself to think of cutting it short again. Before God, Leo!"
He lifted her hand, still fast in his, as though invoking the Unseen Presence, and almost inaudibly she repeated after him the words of the promise.