“You have resigned me?” she asked in a low vibrating whisper.
“You have cast me off,” he answered.
“Be it so,” she replied, “but you have lived through it, and you now claim nothing. Is it not so? I read it in the dumb pain in your eyes.”
“Yes,” said Hilary, straightening himself and standing upright close beside her, and looking down upon her beautiful dark head. “It is so. I will not cry for the moon, nor will I weary any woman with my regret or entreaty, even you, Fleta, though it is no dishonour to humble oneself at the feet of such as you. No; I will bear my pain like a man. I came here to say good-bye. You are still something like the Fleta that I loved. To-morrow you will not be.”
“How can you tell?” she said with her inscrutable smile. “Still, I think you are right. And now that we are no longer lovers will you enter with me another bond? Will you be my comrade in undertaking the great task? I know you are fearless.”
“The great task?” said Hilary vaguely, and he put his hand to his forehead.
“The one great task of this narrow life—To learn its lesson and go beyond it.”
“Yes, I will be your comrade,” said Hilary in an even voice and without enthusiasm.
“Then meet me at two this very morning at the gate of the garden-house where you used to enter.”
It was now just midnight. Hilary noticed this as he turned away, for a little clock stood on a bracket close by. He looked at it, and looked back at Fleta. Could she mean what she said? But already the Fleta he knew had vanished; a cold, haughty, impassive young queen was accepting the uninteresting homage of a foreign minister. The guests were beginning to take their departure. Fleta and Otto did not propose to take any journey in honour of their wedding as is the custom in some places; the king opened for their use the finest set of guests’ chambers in the palace, and these they occupied, remaining among the visitors until all had departed. On the next day Otto was to take his queen home; but he had had to give way to the wishes of Fleta and her father as to the postponing of the journey.