The scene was engraved for years on the retina of Knight’s eye: the dead and brown stubble, the weeds among it, the distant belt of beeches shutting out the view of the house, the leaves of which were now red and sick to death.
“You must forget me,” he said. “We shall not marry, Elfride.”
How much anguish passed into her soul at those words from him was told by the look of supreme torture she wore.
“What meaning have you, Harry? You only say so, do you?”
She looked doubtingly up at him, and tried to laugh, as if the unreality of his words must be unquestionable.
“You are not in earnest, I know—I hope you are not? Surely I belong to you, and you are going to keep me for yours?”
“Elfride, I have been speaking too roughly to you; I have said what I ought only to have thought. I like you; and let me give you a word of advice. Marry your man as soon as you can. However weary of each other you may feel, you belong to each other, and I am not going to step between you. Do you think I would—do you think I could for a moment? If you cannot marry him now, and another makes you his wife, do not reveal this secret to him after marriage, if you do not before. Honesty would be damnation then.”
Bewildered by his expressions, she exclaimed—
“No, no; I will not be a wife unless I am yours; and I must be yours!”
“If we had married——”