Only one month since his passionate, loving words would have made
the sweetest music to her; she listened and tried to look like
herself, but her heart was cold with vague, unutterable dread.
"The fourteenth of October"--clever Lord Airlie, by some system
of calculation known only to himself, persuaded Beatrice that
that was the "latter end of the month."
"Not another word," he said, gayly. "I will go and tell Lord
Earle. Do not say afterward that you have changed your mind, as
many ladies do. Beatrice, say to me, 'Hubert, I promise to
marry you on the fourteenth of October.'"
She repeated the words after him.
"It will be almost winter," he added; "the flowers will have
faded, the leaves will have fallen from the trees; yet no summer
day will ever be so bright to me as that."
She watched him quit the room, and a long, low cry came from her
lips. Would it ever be? She went to the window and looked at
the trees. When the green leaves lay dead she would be Lord
Airlie's wife, or would the dark cloud of shame and sorrow have
fallen, hiding her forever from his sight?
Ah, if she had been more prudent! How tame and foolish, how
distasteful the romance she had once thought delightful seemed
now! If she had but told all to Lord Earle!
It was too late now! Yet, despite the deadly fear that lay at
her heart, Beatrice still felt something like hope.
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