“An announcement! What?”
“I must leave you.”
She stood before him, looked quickly into his face, and turned pale.
“Leave me!” she gasped.
“Yes. I find, alas, I am compelled to go.”
“And only the day before yesterday you asked me to become your wife!” she cried, reproachfully. “What have I done that you should treat me thus?”
“Nothing. You have done nothing, Liane, only to fascinate me and hold me irrevocably to you,” he answered, looking earnestly into her clear, beautiful eyes. He paused. His soul was too full for utterance. Then at length he said, “I have asked you here this evening to tell you everything, for when I leave here, I fear it will be never to return.”
“Why?” she asked, looking him full in the face, with a puzzled expression.
“Because I am not wealthy, as is generally believed,” he replied, colouring deeply as he met her searching gaze. “It is useless to deceive you, therefore I must tell you the hideous truth. My father has thought fit to leave his whole fortune to my brother, and allow me to go penniless. I am therefore unable to marry.”
Liane’s lips had grown white with fear and astonishment. “And that is the reason you now intend to forsake me!” she gasped.