“Because the knowledge that he was here could not have benefited you,” she answered.
“You have met him, of course, clandestinely,” he said, regarding her with knit brows.
“I do not deny it.”
“And you have told him, I hope, that you are to be my wife?”
“I have,” she sighed.
“Then you must not meet again. You understand,” he exclaimed fiercely. “Send the fellow back to London.”
She bit her lip, but made no answer. Her eyes were filled with tears. Without any further words they drove rapidly along the Promenade, at that hour chill after the fading of the sun, until the cab with its jingling bells pulled up before the Pension, and Liane alighted. For an instant she turned to him, bowing, then entered the villa.
Her father was out, and on going into her own room she locked the door, cast down her sunshade, tossed her hat carelessly aside, and pushing her hair from her fevered brow with both hands, stood at the open window gazing aimlessly out upon the sea. A sense of utter loneliness crept over her forlorn heart. She was, she told herself, entirely friendless, now that her father desired her to marry Zertho. Hers had been at best a cheerless, melancholy life, yet it was now without either hope, happiness, or love. The sea stretching before her was like her own future, impenetrable, a great grey expanse, dismal and limitless, without a single gleam of brightness, growing every instant darker, more obscure, more mysterious.
Thoughts of the man she loved so fondly surged through her troubled mind. She remembered how sad and melancholy he had looked when she had passed him by; how bitterly he had smiled when she bowed to him. The memory of his dear face brought back to her all the terrible past, all the hopelessness of the future, all the hideousness of the truth.
She sank beside her bed, and burying her face in the white coverlet gave way to her emotion, shedding a torrent of tears.