“But suppose I were to hear that in six months’ time you had married some one else?”

“Mr. Annesley, you mean.  Not in six months.”

“Somebody else.  Not Mr. Annesley.”

“There is nobody else.”

“But there might be.”

“It is impossible.  After all that I told you, do not you understand?”

“But if there were?” The poor man, as he made the suggestion, looked very piteous.  “If there were, I think you should promise me I shall be that somebody else.  That would be no more than fair.”

She paused a moment to think, frowning the while.  “Certainly not.”

“Certainly not?”

“I can make no such promise, nor should you ask it.  I am to promise that under certain circumstances I would become your wife, when I know that under no circumstances I would do so.”

“Under no circumstances?”

“Under none.  What would you have me say, Mr. Anderson?  Supposing yourself engaged to marry a girl—­”

“I wish I were—­to you.”

“To a girl who loved you, and whom you loved?”

“There’s no doubt about my loving her.”

“You can follow my meaning, and I wish that you would do so.  What would you think if you were to hear that she had promised to marry some one else in the event of your deserting her?  It is out of the question.  I mean to be the wife of Harry Annesley.  Say that it is not to be so, and you will simply destroy me.  Of one thing I may be sure,—­that I will marry him or nobody.  You promised me, not because your promise was necessary for that, but to spare me from trouble till that time shall come.  And I am grateful,—­very grateful.”  Then she left him suffering from another headache.

“Was there anything said between you and Mr. Anderson yesterday?” her aunt inquired, that afternoon.

“Why do you ask?”

“Because it is necessary that I should know.”

“I do not see the necessity.  Mr. Anderson has, at any rate, your permission to say what he likes to me, but I am not on that account bound to tell you all that he does say.  But I will tell you.  He has promised to trouble me no farther.  I told him that I was engaged to Mr. Annesley, and he, like a gentleman, has assured me that he will desist.”

“Just because you asked him?”

“Yes, aunt; just because I asked him.”

“He will not be bound by such a promise for a moment.  It is a thing not to be heard of.  If that kind of thing is to go on, any young lady will be entitled to ask any young gentleman not to say a word of marriage, just at her request.”

“Some of the young ladies would not care for that, perhaps.”

“Don’t be impertinent.”

“I should not, for one, aunt; only that I am already engaged.”

“And of course the young ladies would be bound to make such requests, which would go for nothing at all.  I never heard of anything so monstrous.  You are not only to have the liberty of refusing, but are to be allowed to bind a gentleman not to ask!”