‘Yes, without a word of explanation.’ There was a quaver in her voice as she said these words which he did not fail to detect.
He sat like a man stunned—like one who has heard some tidings of import greater than his mind is able to grasp. ‘Laura! you torture me,’ he said at length.
At this she raised her dark, grief-laden eyes, and gazed at him for a moment or two with a sort of dumb, pathetic tenderness, while at the same time the fingers of one hand wandered caressingly over his sleeve.
He was profoundly moved. He rose from his chair, and took a turn or two in silence, and then resumed his seat. ‘Send for the nurse to take away that child,’ he said, ‘and then come with me for a walk in the shrubbery.’
‘Oscar, I dare not.’
‘You dare not! Why?’
‘I dare not. We had better say farewell here and now, than later on and before others.’
‘Farewell!’
‘I leave here by the afternoon express. Oscar, after to-day, you and I must never meet again.’
He started to his feet. ‘Never meet again! But—— Why—— Can you who say this to me be the same woman whom I kissed but yesterday?’