"If you have one spark of honour, Mr. Andinnian--and until now I believed you had your full share of it--if you do care in ever so small a degree for my daughter's comfort and her true welfare; in short, if you are a man and a gentleman, you will aid me in striving to undo the harm that has been done."
"I will strive to do what is best to be done," replied Karl, knowing the fiat that must come, and feeling that his heart was breaking.
"Very well. Our acquaintance with you must close from this hour; and I must ask you to give me your word of honour never to attempt to hold future communication with my daughter in any way: never to meet her in society even, if it be possible for you to stay away and avoid it. In future you and Miss Cleeve are strangers."
There was a dead silence. Karl seemed to be looking at vacancy, over the Colonel's head.
"You do not speak, Mr. Andinnian."
He roused himself with a sort of shudder. "I believe I was lost in glancing at the blighted life mine will be, Colonel Cleeve." And the Colonels in spite of his self-interest, felt a kind of pity for the feelings that he saw were stung to the quick.
"Do you refuse to comply with my mandate?"
"No, sir. Putting the affair before me in the light you have put it, no alternative is left me. I see, too, that circumstanced as I am--and as she is--my dream of love has been nothing but madness. On my word of honour, Colonel Cleeve, could I have looked at the matter at first as I look at it now, and foreseen that we were destined to--to care for each other, I would have flown Miss Cleeve's presence."
"These regrets often come late in the day, Mr. Andinnian," was the rather sarcastic answer.
"They have in this case."