"I am not free, but enslaved--by love and worship of you. Would
you deny me; Would you?"
"Not I, but fate," she answered heavily, and he knew that the
woman at Cumnor was in her mind.
"Fate will soon mend the wrong that fate has done--very soon
now." He took her hand, and, melted again from her dignity, she
let it lie in his. "When that is done, sweet, then will I claim
you for my own."
"When that is done, Robin?" she questioned almost fearfully, as
if a sudden dread suspicion broke upon her mind. "When what is
done?"
He paused a moment to choose his words, what time she stared
intently into the face that gleamed white in the surrounding
gloom.
"When that poor ailing spirit is at rest." And he added: "It will
be soon."
"Thou hast said the same aforetime, Robin. Yet it has not so
fallen out."
"She has clung to life beyond what could have been believed of
her condition," he explained, unconscious of any sinister
ambiguity. "But the end, I know, is very near--a matter but of
days."
"Of days!" she shivered, and moved forward to the edge of the
terrace, he keeping step beside her. Then she stood awhile in
silence, looking down at the dark oily surge of water.
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