He said the words with gentleness and perfect respect, but her face crimsoned with anger.
"Never!" she cried, fiercely.
He smiled.
"I have never failed to keep my word, particularly when the promise was made to myself," he answered, lightly. "Neither heaven nor earth, nor life nor death, nor yet eternity itself, could stand between us!"
He stepped out of her way, not a particle of excitement visible in his manner—on the contrary, he was calmer, more careless than usual—and she looked into his face for one moment, then fled by him and up the stairs to her own apartment.
Then she locked the door and threw herself upon the bed, in a passion of tears—tears such as she had never shed, not even at the death of her mother; but they were so different—hot, angry tears; and yet—yet there was some grief in them, too, though she could not have told why.
It was almost daylight when Jessica and her mother returned, and yet she was still lying there, never having removed her clothing.
She got up then, in a shamed sort of way, and undressed herself; but it was of the man she hated that she dreamed, not the man she loved; it was the gray eyes into which she looked, not the blue; and she rose in the morning unrefreshed, and with eyes still swollen from weeping.