'Your—your engagement.'
'My engagement! And may I ask to whom?'
'To Miss Leslie.'
'What!' he exclaimed. 'What do you mean? Alice Leslie! Who can have told you such a falsehood?'
'Katharine heard it when she was in London.'
There was a long, long silence, while each guessed the other's secret.
'Is it not true?' she said at last.
'No; on my soul!' he answered. 'I never said a word to that girl all the world might not have heard. I engaged to her! No! O Louise!' he cried passionately; 'Louise, my darling! I have loved you so long, and this is the end of it! Did not you know last year that I loved you and you only, when I asked you to trust me? I have been silent for a year, to obey my father, and—I have lost you!'
His voice trembled as he caught her hands, and a great longing tenderness gleamed in his deep blue eyes. 'Did not you love me, Louise? Have I been fool enough to delude myself all these months?'
'I was very—very unhappy when Katharine told me.' The answer was simply, hopelessly spoken, and there was another silence, broken again by her voice. 'Vere,' she said, 'Vere—I may call you so just this once—we have made a terrible mistake; but I must keep my word. Say good-bye to me, and let me go.'