“No, Claudia. Our love must end. It is not fair to you that it should continue.”
“You desire that it should end?” she asked in a strained voice.
“No. I am bound to leave you by force of circumstances,” he replied. “We can never marry—never.”
“But why? I really can’t understand you. Of late you have been so strange, so preoccupied, and so unusually solicitous for my good name.”
“Yes,” he admitted, “it must have struck you as strange. But I have been thinking of your future.”
“Did you never think of it in the past?”
“Of the future—when you are alone, I mean,” he said gravely.
“What? Are you going abroad?”
He was silent again, his eyes fixed blankly upon the carpet.
“Perhaps,” he said at last.