Page:Comin' Thro' the Rye (1898).djvu/326

318 "Make as many as you please to me." I answer steadily, "and I will listen; but I have none to give you in return."

"None?"

"None."

"You used not to be so secret."

"Am I bound to give an account of myself to you?"

"I will have no more of this miserable uncertainty," he says suddenly. "Tell me, Nell, are you engaged to that man at Silverbridge?"

"That is a matter that concerns myself only."

"Are you, or are you not?" he asks again, while the veins rise in his forehead like cords, and his hand clenches.

I may as well tell him, after all; why should there be any mystery over it? It can make no possible difference to him or any one else.

"No. But there is a kind of promise between us.”

"A kind of promise? Tell me what it is?"

"When I was fourteen I gave him my word of honour that when I was eighteen years old and six months I would marry him if

"If!" he repeats quickly. "Go on!"

"I did not see any one I liked better."

"Indeed! And are the six months up?"

"No."

He draws a deep breath; and then in the voice of a man who puts a strong restraint upon himself, says, "Tell me one thing now: Do you love him?"

"You ask too much," I answer, turning my pale face away. "What is it to you whether I love him or no?"

And then, against my will, I lift my eyes to his, which are deep and tender with a warm love-light though he is speaking to me, he is thinking of her; and somehow the thought of her