“But I—I need you too,” he insisted desperately, crushed by the tragedy of it all.
“Not the way he does,” she interposed. “Oh, Vittorio, I have promised. I cannot break my word even——” her voice faltered—“even for you! Nothing but Alexis’ own will can ever separate us now!”
He groaned. “But you are not happy. You do not love him. You love me. Even he wouldn’t ask you to keep your word if he knew that,” he said miserably.
“But he doesn’t know. He doesn’t dream that I don’t love him, poor boy. I’d rather tear myself in pieces than have him guess. He has been so unhappy, so miserable!”
“But Anne, doesn’t my unhappiness, my misery, mean as much to you as his?”
She turned an anguished face towards him, laying her hands upon his shoulders. “You know what it means to me,” she gasped. “I—I love you, Vittorio.”
His arms closed about her frantically. “This is horrible. You say you love me and yet you are going to marry another man.”
“I have given my word,” she whispered, against his heart.
They were silent for a moment, while the perfumed breeze rustled in the tree-tops and played with the vines upon the wall.
“What was that?” exclaimed Anne, starting up nervously. A new sound, like a stealthy footstep had risen from the path beneath them.