“Kitty!” He had seized her hand and was gazing rapturously into her eyes. “Kitty!”
The lids fluttered down over the brown depths. The hand trembled.
“You—you’re crushing my rose,” she whispered.
“Kitty!” he cried again, releasing her hand as though it were life itself, “tell me again that it’s true!”
“True that I was only a substitute bride?” she asked tremulously, with hidden eyes. “Yes, it’s quite true, sadly true.” She looked up with an attempt at exaggerated woe, but when she saw his face she averted her own again and gave all her attention to the crushed rose in her hand. “I—I must be going now,” she said.
“Going? No, you mustn’t go!” he cried.
“I must,” she murmured from the safe distance of a yard away. “Good-by.”
“Good-by?”
“You are going North, are you not?” she asked innocently.