'I love somebody else.'
The words seemed to stupefy him.
'You do?' he cried. 'Somebody else? But has not a sense of what is morally right and proper any weight with you?'
'No, no, no—don't say that!'
'Anyhow, then, your love for this other man may be only a passing feeling which you will overcome———'
'No—no.'
'Yes, yes! Why not?'
'I cannot tell you.'
'You must in honour!'
'Well then . . . I have married him.'
'Ah!' he exclaimed; and he stopped dead and gazed at her.
'I did not wish to tell—I did not mean to!' she pleaded. 'It is a secret here, or at any rate but dimly known. So will you, please will you, keep from questioning me? You must remember that we are now strangers.'
'Strangers—are we? Strangers!'
For a moment a flash of his old irony marked his face; but he determinedly chastened it down.
'Is that man your husband?' he asked me-
