He took the hand and bent his head over it. She felt a hot, burning tear fall on it as he murmured:
“Thank you and bless you Cinthia. We will soon get used to the new role of friendship, and no woman ever found truer friend than I will prove to you.”
Then they heard the other two coming, and stopped to wait for them, relieved at the interruption.
CHAPTER XXIX.
A SECRET SORROW.
“I dreamed that time, I dreamed that pride,
Had quenched at length my early flame,
Nor knew till seated by thy side,
My heart in all save hope the same.”
Cinthia had made a rash promise, and she realized it; but her pride would not permit her to retract.
She knew well that Arthur Varian was still too fatally dear to her heart for her to meet him daily on mere friendly grounds; that would only augment her love and her despair, since neither pride nor reason had sufficed to quench the smoldering flame.