"It is only since this happened that I have become at all reconciled to--to what had to be done at Winchester, Lucy. It would have been so greatly worse, had you been tied to me by--by any engagement."
"Not worse for you, Karl, but better. I should have helped you so much to bear it."
"My darling!"
The moment the words had crossed his lips, he remembered what honour and his long-ago-passed word to Colonel Cleeve demanded of him--that he should absolutely abstain from showing any tokens of affection for Lucy. Nay, to observe it strictly, he ought not to have stayed to talk with her.
"I beg your pardon, Lucy," he said, dropping her hand.
She understood quite well: a faint colour mantled in her pale face. She had been as forgetful as he.
"God bless you, Lucy," he whispered. "Farewell."
"O Karl--a moment," she implored with agitation, hardly knowing, in the pain of parting, what she said. "Just to tell you that I have not forgotten. I never shall forget. My regret, for what had to be, lies on me still."
"God bless you," he repeated, in deep emotion. "God bless and restore you, Lucy!"
Once more their fingers met in a brief handshake. And then they parted; he going one way, she the other; and the world had grown dim again.