"Good-bye!" she then said, drawing her hands from his. "Remember only, when you blame me, that I told you, not to let you be degraded. And forgive me before I die, for I loved you—ah, better than my own life!"
With a sudden impulse she stooped forward, took back his right hand in both of hers, pressed it to her bosom, kissed it passionately again and again, then turned with one faint, half-suppressed moan, and left him. And as he heard her light feet cross the hall, wearily, heavily, as the feet of a mourner dragging by the grave of the beloved, he knew that his dream of love was over. But, with the strange satire of the senses in moments of sorrow, noting ever the most trivial things, Edgar noted specially the powerful perfume of a spray of lemon-plant which she bruised as she pressed his hand against her breast.
That evening Edgar Harrowby went down to the rectory. He was strong enough in physique and in some phases of will, but he was not strong all through, and he had never been able to face unassisted the first desolation of a love-disappointment.
Adelaide, in a picturesque dress and her most becoming mood, welcomed him with careful cordiality as a prodigal whose husks, clinging about his coat, were to be handled tenderly as if they were pearls. She saw that something was gravely wrong, and she grasped the line of connection if she did not understand the issue; but, mindful of the doctrine of letting well alone—also of that of catching a heart at the rebound—she made no allusion in the beginning, but let her curiosity gnaw her like the Spartan boy's fox without making a sign. At last, however, her curiosity became impatience, and her impatience conquered her reserve. She was clever in her generation and fairly self-controlled, but she was only a woman, after all.
"And when did you see that eccentric little lady, Miss Leam?" she asked with a smile—not a bitter smile, merely one of careless amusement, as if Leam was acknowledged to be a comical subject of conversation and one naturally provoking a smile.
"Dear Adelaide," said Edgar, not looking at her, but speaking with unusual earnestness, "do not speak ill of Leam Dundas—neither to me nor to any one else. I ask it as a favor."
Adelaide turned pale. "Tell me only one thing, Edgar: are you going to marry her?" she asked, her manner as earnest as his own, but with a different meaning.
"No. Marry her? Good God, no!" was his vehement reply. Then more tenderly: "But for all that do not speak ill of her. Will you promise, dear, good friend?"
"Yes, I will promise," she answered with what was for her fervor and a sudden look of intense relief. "I never will again, Edgar; and I am sorry if I have hurt you at any time by what I may have said. I did not mean to do so."
"No, I know you did not. I can appreciate your motives, and they were good," Edgar answered with emotion; and then their two pairs of fine blue eyes met, and both pairs were moist.