“See! It is half-past eleven! I must go at once. I shall be locked out now, as it is. I’ve been late so often recently. You know how strict our rules are.”
“But tell me that I may hope, Muriel. Only tell me that I may hope.”
“It is useless,” she answered hastily, twisting free her hand, and re-arranging her veil at the mirror. “I have told you. Let me go.”
“No, no! You shall not, unless you promise me. I love you, Muriel. You shall not pass out of my life like this.”
“It will be midnight before I get back,” she cried distressed. “I had no idea it was so late as this!”
“Your business matters not. To me your love is all—everything.”
She stood erect before me, statuesque, queenly, looking upon me with her dark-brown eyes, in which I thought I detected a glance of pity. But it was only for an instant. Her face suddenly grew hard and set. There was a look of firm determination, which told me that my hope could never be realised; that she had spoken the truth; that she loved another.
“Good-bye,” she said, in a voice half-choked with emotion, and as she put forth her hand I grasped it and pressed it to my lips.
“Good-bye, Muriel,” I murmured, with a bitterness felt in the depths of my soul. “But may I not go with you to your door?”
“No,” she responded, “I shall take a cab. Good-bye.”