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74 made my own life miserable, but would have dragged others down with me. Do you not understand that this marriage would have been a great blow to my parents and relatives? I should have been lost to my country for ever, and in the end what would she have gained, for whose sake all this sacrifice would have been incurred? Would her life not have been unhappy as well? Since I did not love her, I could not have made her happy. In the face of all this, do you still hold I should have married her?"

This argument seemed true, but there was one point still unexplained. "Why does she still expect to be married to you? You should at least have had a final explanation with her, and asked her to release you from your word."

"I thought I had given sufficient explanation, but if there is still any doubt in her mind, the news of my marriage will make her position clear to her."

How cruel those last words sounded, how extremely repugnant it all seemed to me. She loved him, she still hoped to be married to him, and now she was to realise the situation through the news of his marriage. Oh, what agony, what heart-burning would she