“You are in love with the Lamb!”
“That was a trick. I'm sorry, Max. I don't care for anyone else in the world. If you let me go I'll want to die.”
Then, as he was silent:—
“If you'll marry me, I'll be true to you all my life. I swear it. There will be nobody else, ever.”
The sense, if not the words, of what he had sworn to Sidney that Sunday afternoon under the trees, on this very road! Swift shame overtook him, that he should be here, that he had allowed Carlotta to remain in ignorance of how things really stood between them.
“I'm sorry, Carlotta. It's impossible. I'm engaged to marry some one else.”
“Sidney Page?”—almost a whisper.
“Yes.”
He was ashamed at the way she took the news. If she had stormed or wept, he would have known what to do. But she sat still, not speaking.
“You must have expected it, sooner or later.”