“I’ve just a few things I wish to say to you, Bess,” he began, “and a request to make—­and that is all.  I didn’t come back so, unexpectedly, to be unpleasant, or to interfere with what you wish to do.  I came because I fancied you were going to do an unwise thing:  because I had reason to believe you were going to run away.”  Unconsciously, one of the folded hands loosened, passed absently over his forehead; then returned abruptly to its place.  “Perhaps I was mistaken.  If so I beg your pardon for the suspicion; but at least, if I can prevent, I don’t want you to do so.  It’s this I came to tell you.”  Again the voice halted, and into it there came a new note:  a self-conquered throb that lingered in the girl’s recollection while memory lasted.

“It’s useless to talk of yourself and of myself, Bess,” he went on.  “Things are as they are—­and final.  I don’t judge you, I—­understand.  Above everything else in life, I wish you to be happy; and I realise now I can’t make you so.  Another perhaps can; I hope so and trust so.  At least I shall not stand in your way any longer.  It is that I came to tell you.  It is I who shall leave and not you, Bess.”  Of a sudden he stepped back and lifted one hand free, preventingly.  “Just a moment, please,” he requested.  “Don’t interrupt me until I say what I came to say.”  His arms folded back as before, his eyes held hers compellingly.

“I said I had a request to make.  This is it—­that you don’t leave until you are married again.  You won’t have to wait long if I leave.  I have inquired and found out.  A few days, a few weeks at the longest, and you will be free.  Meanwhile stay here.  Everything is yours.  I never owned anything except the house, and that is yours also.”  For the last time he halted; then even, distinct, came the question direct.  “Will you promise me this, Bess?” he asked.

Save once, when she had tried to interrupt, the girl had listened through it all without a move, without a sound.  Now that he was silent, and it was her turn to speak, she still stood so, passive, waiting.  Ever in times of stress his will had dominated her will; and the present was no exception.  There was an infinity of things she might have said.  A myriad which she should have spoken, would occur to her when he was gone.  But at the present, when the opportunity was hers, there seemed nothing to offer; nothing to gainsay.  She even forgot that she was expected to answer at all, that he had asked a question.

“Won’t you promise me this one thing, Bess?” repeated the voice gently.  “I’ve never made a request of you before, and I probably never shall again.”

At last the girl aroused; and of a sudden she realised that her lips were very dry and hot.  She moistened them with her tongue.

“Yes, How,” she said dully, “I promise.”

Silence fell, a silence deathly in its significance, in its finality; but the girl did not break it, said no more—­and forever the moment, her moment, vanished into the past.