“My family and his family know,” Martie said.

“Oh, but Martie—­you can’t mean that!” he burst out in agony.  “What have I done!  What have I done—­to have you do this!  You don’t love him!”

“John,” she said steadily, catching his hands, “even if I were free, you aren’t, dear.  We could never be married while Adele lives.”

He turned his steady gaze upon her.

“Then last night—­” he asked gravely.

“Last night I was a fool, John—­I was all to blame!  I’m so sorry—­ I’m so terribly sorry!”

“I thought last night—­” He turned away under the willows, and she anxiously followed him.  “You let me think you cared!”

“John, I do care!”

“You said you did!”

“I don’t know what was the matter with me,” Martie said wretchedly, “I was so carried away by seeing you so suddenly—­and thinking of old times—­and of all we had been through together—­”

“But it wasn’t of that we talked, Martie!”

“I know.”  Her head drooped.  “I know!”

“I’m so sorry,” he said, bewildered and hurt.  “I don’t understand you.  I can’t believe that you are going to marry that man, whoever he is; you didn’t say anything about him last night!  Who is he—­what right has he got to come into it?”

“He’s a good and honourable man, John, and he asked me.  And I said yes.”

“You said yes—­loving me?”

“Oh, John dear—­you don’t understand—­”

“No,” he said heavily, “I confess I don’t.”

The tone, curt and cold, brought tears to her eyes, and he saw them.  Instantly he was all penitence.

“Martie—­ah, don’t cry!  Don’t cry for me!  Don’t—­I tell you, or I shall rush off somewhere—­I can’t see you cry!  I’ll try to understand.  But you see last night—­last night made me hope that you might care for me a little—­I couldn’t sleep, Martie, I was so happy!  But I won’t think of that.  Now tell me, I’m quite quiet, you see.  Tell me.  You don’t mean that you don’t—­feel anything about it?”

“John,” she said simply, “I don’t know whether I love you or not.  I know that—­that last night was one of the wonderful times of my life.  But it came on me like a thunderbolt—­I never felt that way before—­even when I was first engaged, even when I was married!  But I don’t know whether that’s love, or whether it’s just you—­the extraordinary effect of you!  You belong to one of the hardest parts of my life, and at first, last night, I thought it was just seeing you again—­like any other old friend.  Now—­this morning—­I don’t know.”  She stopped, distressed.  The man was silent.  “If I’ve really made you unhappy, it will kill me, I think,” Martie began, again, pleadingly.  “How can I go on into this marriage feeling that you are lonely and hurt about it?”

They had sat down on the old iron bench that had for fifty years stood rooted in the earth far down at the end of the garden, under pepper trees and gnarled evergreens and rusty pampas grass.