"I pledged myself to Our Blessed Lady, in soul and body for all the days of my life, if, by her holy intercession the double conversions of Bayard and Inez might be accomplished before I died."
"You mean that you promised—"
"Never to marry," she added eagerly "although at that time, only Heaven knew how I had grown to love Ernest Dalton. I did not know he was your friend then, Amey. I fancied he had spoken in a particularly kind way to me and he could not but see how fondly I cherished his every word and look—but I gave him up—the only sacrifice I had to lay upon that altar of supplication. Afterwards I saw that what I had done out of solicitude for the welfare of those who are nearest and dearest to me on earth would, perhaps, have been exacted of me by the cruel irony of fate. Ernest Dalton loved you all along, I suspected it on that day when we examined his locket together, and your strange, conscious look when I spoke of him convinced me of it easily."
"Poor Hortense," I muttered in a half sob.—"He is my guardian, my god-father, and the picture in his locket is not mine at all, it is my mother's."
"Amey! Your mother's?"
"Yes, he loved her years ago before she married my father. There was some misunderstanding between them and they drifted apart, but he has always been faithful to her memory up to this. They say I am very like her," I added slowly, folding my hands and looking away towards the distant gray clouds outside.
"Her living image," said Hortense, wistfully, "if I may judge by that little picture, but you—didn't you love him too, Amey?" she asked with an eager look, stroking my hand gently with her own delicate palm.
"It is a time for confessions, Hortense," I answered timidly, "or I should never tell you this, however, we may as well be frank with one another now. I thought I did, until I had reason to suspect that you loved him also, from that moment I resigned him to you and refused to think of him ever again, except as an old, esteemed and devoted friend. I did not know at that time that he had ever known my mother, nor did I suspect the existence of the close ties that bind us to one another in a different way. I only knew that in encouraging my regard for him, I might be trespassing upon the peace and happiness of your life and that is something that Amey Hampden never would or could do to Hortense de Beaumont above all other living creatures."
"You thought he would return my love in time and that we would ultimately be happy together, and with this hope you made your sacrifice did you?" she questioned eagerly.
"I did, my darling little friend! I would not come between you and your life's projects, for all the world," I answered, clasping her wasted form in my strong, loving embrace. "I would have been well repaid, when I saw you happy with my help."