No pen could paint her emotions at that moment. They were too painful to permit of speech. Only one word fell from her lips—low-murmured and in accents of extremest sadness—the black word “Betrayed!”
Though silent in speech, her thoughts flowed fast and freely.
This, then, is the barrier that might come between us. Might come! Oh! the falsehood! And such a promise as I have given! Despite every obstacle, to love him! I thought not of this—how could I? No promise can bridge over such a chasm. I may not—I dare not keep it. ’Tis no sin to break it now. Mother of God! give me the strength!
“Ah! ’tis easy to talk of breaking it. Merciful Heaven! the power has passed from me!
“’Tis sinful on either side. Perjury the one, a worse crime the other. I feel powerless to choose between them. Alas!—alas! Despite his betrayal, I love him, I love him!
“Am I not wronging him? Was not I the wooer—I, Marion Wade? Was it not I who gave the first sign—the challenge—everything?
“What meant he to have said at that moment, when our last interview was interrupted? What was it, he was about to declare—and yet hesitated? Perhaps he intended to have made this very disclosure—to tell me all? Oh I could have forgiven him; but now I may not—I dare not—”
She paused, as if conscious how idle it was, to give thought to a resolve she had not the power to keep.
“Married! Holtspur married! Alas! my love dream is ended! No—not ended! ’tis only changed from sweet to sad; and this will never change till my unhappy heart be stilled in the sleep of death!”
The despairing maiden stood with her white fingers still clasped around the stem of the sapling—her eyes bent upon the ground in vacant gaze, as if all thought had forsaken her.