at the moment.  It had been possible for her to accept the hand of Adrian Urmand because she had become assured that George Voss no longer regarded her as his promised bride.  She would have stood firm against her uncle and her aunt, she would have stood against all the world, had it not seemed to her that the evidence of her cousin’s indifference was complete.  Had not that evidence been complete at all points, it would have been impossible to her to think of becoming the wife of another man.  Now the evidence on that matter which had seemed to her to be so sufficient was all blown to the winds.

It is true that had all her feelings been guided by reason only, she might have been as strong as ever.  In truth she had not sinned against him.  In truth she had not sinned at all.  She had not done that which she herself had desired.  She had not been anxious for wealth, or ease, or position; but had, after painful thought, endeavoured to shape her conduct by the wishes of others, and by her ideas of duty, as duty had been taught to her.  O, how willingly would she have remained as servant to her uncle, and have allowed M. Urmand to carry the rich gift of his linen-chest to the feet of some other damsel, had she believed herself to be free to choose!  Had there been no passion in her heart, she would now have known herself to be strong in duty, and would have been able to have answered and to have borne the rebuke of her old lover.  But passion was there, hot within her, aiding every word as he spoke it, giving strength to his complaints, telling her of all that she had lost, telling her of all she had taken from him.  She forgot to remember now that he had been silent for a year.  She forgot now to think of the tone in which he had asked about her marriage when no such marriage was in her mind.  But she remembered well the promise she had made, and the words of it.  ‘Your vow was for ever and ever.’  When she heard those words repeated from his lips, her heart too was broken.  All idea of holding herself before him as one injured but ready to forgive was gone from her.  If by falling at his feet and owning herself to be vile and mansworn she might get his pardon, she was ready now to lie there on the ground before him.

‘O George!’ she said; ‘O George!’

‘What is the use of that now?’ he replied, turning away from her.  He had thrown his thunderbolt, and he had nothing more to say.  He had seen that he had not thrown it quite in vain, and he would have been contented to be away and back at Colmar.  What more was there to be said?

She came to him very gently, very humbly, and just touched his arm with her hand.  ’Do you mean, George, that you have continued to care for me—­always?’

’Care for you?  I know not what you call caring.  Did I not swear to you that I would love you for ever and ever, and that you should be my own?  Did I not leave this house and go away,—­till I could earn for you one that should be fit for you,—­because I loved you?  Why should I have broken my word?  I do not believe that you thought that it was broken.’