“Come and have some tea with me,” he said.
For he was glad to be able to talk to her. He could not well rush down to Shelton at five o’clock, and he doubted the expediency of doing so.
“Launa took it quietly,” said Sylvia, as she drank her tea. “After we were alone she was so different—so glad. I rejoice when I remember how she said, ‘Paul!’ Did you hear the sound in her voice when she called you?—as if she could not be relieved and grateful enough. I am thinking of marriage—serious, uncomfortable marriage myself.”
“You are? I thought—”
“You thought me broken-hearted. So I am; I am wretched—tired of waiting, of longing, and of thinking what a fool I have been. He loved me, and it is too late. I long for love until I feel nearly mad, so I am going to marry. I shall be bound, tied up, and there will be no escape, and so I must feel peaceful.”
“You will not.”
“Ah, but I shall. Why did I not go with him? Why did I not love him while I could?”
“Who are you going to marry?”
“A man who knows it all. I am not going to deceive him. He says the heart of a woman cannot remain in a man’s grave for ever. But . . . when he is with me I see . . . the other. It is ghastly.”