and to things material!  He who had so sinned against her was about to rid himself of the burden of his sin by endeavouring to cast it upon her.  So much she understood, but yet she did not understand all that was to come.  She would hear the rebuke as quietly as she might.  In the interest of others she would do so.  But she would not fear him,—­and she would say a quiet word in defence of her own sex if there should be need.  Such was the purport of her mind as she stood opposite to him in his room.

‘I hope they will be kind words,’ she said.  ’As we are to part so soon, there should be none unkind spoken.’

‘I do not know much about kindness,’ he replied.  Then he paused and tried to think how best the thunderbolt might be hurled.  ’There is hardly room for kindness where there was once so much more than kindness; where there was so much more,—­or the pretence of it.’  Then he waited again, as though he expected that she should speak.  But she would not speak at all.  If he had aught to say, let him say it.  ’Perhaps, Marie, you have in truth forgotten all the promises you once made me?’ Though this was a direct question she would not answer it.  Her words to him should be as few as possible, and the time for such words had not come as yet.  ’It suits you no doubt to forget them now, but I cannot forget them.  You have been false to me, and have broken my heart.  You have been false to me, when my only joy on earth was in believing in your truth.  Your vow was for ever and ever, and within one short year you are betrothed to another man!  And why?—­because they tell you that he is rich and has got a house full of furniture!  You may prove to be a blessing to his house.  Who can say?  On mine, you and your memory will be a curse,—­lasting all my lifetime!’ And so the thunderbolt had been hurled.

And it fell as a thunderbolt.  What she had expected had not been at all like to this.  She had known that he would rebuke her; but, feeling strong in her own innocence and her own purity, knowing or thinking that she knew that the fault had all been his, not believing—­having got rid of all belief—­that he still loved her, she had fancied that his rebuke would be unjust, cruel, but bearable.  Nay; she had thought that she could almost triumph over him with a short word of reply.  She had expected from him reproach, but not love.  There was reproach indeed, but it came with an expression of passion of which she had not known him to be capable.  He stood before her telling her that she had broken his heart, and, as he told her so, his words were half choked by sobs.  He reminded her of her promises, declaring that his own to her had ever remained in full force.  And he told her that she, she to whom he had looked for all his joy, had become a curse to him and a blight upon his life.  There were thoughts and feelings too beyond all these that crowded themselves upon her heart and upon her mind