“Aunt Verna is tired now. Come away, and I will let you see her again to-morrow,” she said coaxingly.
They went back to the drawing-room, and she sat down by his side on a velvet fauteuil, still keeping her hands clasped in his arm.
But he sat by her pale and distrait, no pulse in his being answering to her blandishments.
He was thinking, miserably:
“Next week! Next week! How under heaven can I get out of this entanglement with honor to myself, and without scandal to Cora?”
He cried hoarsely, displeasedly, in his uncontrollable misery:
“Cora, why are you in such a hurry for the wedding?”
He felt the quick start she gave as she leaned against him, heard the catch in her breath as she sobbed:
“Oh, you are cruel! Think how often it has been postponed, and—and—I thought that you would be as impatient as I am! It—it—was Aunt Verna who advised it. She said: ‘Do not keep the poor fellow waiting long, Cora. No matter if I am sick, the marriage must not be postponed again! You can be married very quietly and go away, and no one will think hard of you, for you have suffered much and waited long!’ Oh, Frank, you seem so cold, so indifferent? Do not tell me you love me no more. If you tore that hope from me I should die here at your feet of my shame and my despair!”
No man ever had a tenderer heart than Laurier.