"My darling! You will try to care for me
then----?" He would have taken her in his arms; but she held him off at
arm's length.
"No! no, Adrien," she interrupted sadly. "Because I am not engaged to
Lord Standon, is that any reason why I should love one who treats me so
lightly?"
"I treat you lightly, you--the one woman I have ever truly loved?
Constance, whatever sins I may have committed, you are my first love,
and you will be my last. I am not worthy to touch your hand, as pure as
it is white, but will you not forgive me the folly of my past life, and
let me live in hope that I may do better? I swear from this day forth to
cast off the old life, with all its emptiness and folly, and lay the
future at your feet."
As his passionate words ceased, she turned to him.
"Adrien, I do not know what to think," she said in low, troubled tones.
"I wrote to you last month--that day we came up to London, believing
that perhaps you had learned to care a little for me; but when you
deliberately spent the day with another woman, sooner than with me, what
am I to think?"
"What do you mean?" he asked hoarsely.
"I saw you," she returned simply, "when we were at the station, auntie
and I, on the twenty-second----"
"The twenty-second!" he echoed, through blanched lips.
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