"I received your letter, my lord," she said. "Forgive me if I could not answer it."
"You understood?" asked Rose Lyndwood intently; "by what I said and what you have heard since, you understand?"
Her delicate and spiritual face quivered with a smile.
"Oh, yes," she replied. The folds of the grey silk wrap touched her chin, and the pale auburn curls loosely gathered on her proud head fell apart softly on her low brow. Looking at her my lord changed in voice, in mien, in expression, and a part of him that no other had ever seen was hers to gaze on.
"If my lady and your brother wished it," she added, "there was no other thing to do, and I would have desired you to act as you did, my lord."
"As I knew," he answered; "but I am selfish enough to wish you, madam, to know what it costs me"—he caught his breath and bent towards her—"no, not that, I wish to tell you——"
Miss Boyle interrupted him.
"Shall we not, for our own sakes, remember Miss Hilton? What you have not dared to say to me before you cannot say now," her tone sank to an exquisite tenderness; "this is farewell."
"And because it is farewell," said my lord in a tone low but swelling, "I must be bold enough to say some things to you—to tell you this at least, that you have given me the sweetest pain—that I would sooner have died on my own sword than do what I have to do."
"But that way is for boors," she flashed response; "gentlemen must live. Perhaps I also see no great joy ahead"—her eyes were like live gold in her shadowed face; "it has all been a pitiful matter, and I am sorry for Miss Hilton, but as for us—we may find some greatness in our way of meeting the future."