'No; I suppose not.'
'Must you go?'
Halkett glances at her reproachfully. 'Yes; of course I must. There is no other course left open to me. After what you told me last night, it would be simple madness to remain.'
'What did I tell you? I don't think I told you anything.'
'Well—what you led me to infer.'
'You should not infer things. I never meant you to do so.' As Miss Mordaunt says this in a very low tone, she turns her head aside and recedes a step or two. A dark flush rises to Halkett's brow, colouring all his face, even through the bronze an Indian sun has laid upon it. A sudden gleam of something akin to hope shines in his eyes for an instant, but is as speedily suppressed.
'Do you know what you are doing?' he says in a tone sufficiently unsteady to betray the agitation he is feeling. 'Do you know what your manner, your words seem to me to mean? Do not, I implore you, raise within me again the hope I have surrendered, unless—— O Cissy, you will never know how cruel a thing it is to love without return!'
'But—are you sure—your love—has gained no return?' demands Miss Cissy in faltering accents, and immediately afterwards feels she has but one desire on earth, and that is for the ground to open and swallow her.
'Cissy, Cissy!' cries Halkett, 'tell me you do not care for that fellow Blake!'
'Not a bit, not a bit!' says Cissy; and in another moment finds herself in Halkett's arms, her tears running riot over the breast of his coat. 'Oh, say that you forgive me!' she sobs. 'It was most hateful of me—about that bedroom candlestick the other night, and everything. But I misunderstood it all. I thought you loved Mrs Leyton. Say that you forgive me!'