"Now," said he, with his face
white as death, "tell me that you will never marry any other man as
long as you live."
"Yes, I will say that," she said to him in a low voice and with a face
as white as his own.
"Swear it, then."
"I have said that I will never marry any other man than you," she
said, "and that is enough--for me. But as for you, why must you go
away thinking of such things? You will see some day what madness it
would have been; you will come some day and thank me for having told
you so; and then--and then--if anything should be mentioned about what
I said just now, you will laugh at the old, half-forgotten joke."
Well, there was no laughing at the joke just then, for the girl burst
into tears, and in the midst of that she hastily pressed his hand and
hurried away. He watched her go round the rocks, to the cleft leading
down to the harbor. There she was rejoined by her sister, and the two
of them went slowly along the path of broken slate, with the green
hill above, the blue water below, and the fair sunshine all around
them. Many a time he recalled afterward--and always with an increasing
weight at his heart--how sombre seemed to him that bright October day
and the picturesque opening of the coast leading in to Eglosilyan.
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