He
was very kind and good to me, Marian, and I am ashamed to say I
distressed him by crying. I am miserably helpless--I can't
control myself. For my own sake, and for all our sakes, I must
have courage enough to end it."
"Do you mean courage enough to claim your release?" I asked.
"No," she said simply. "Courage, dear, to tell the truth."
She put her arms round my neck, and rested her head quietly on my
bosom. On the opposite wall hung the miniature portrait of her
father. I bent over her, and saw that she was looking at it while
her head lay on my breast.
"I can never claim my release from my engagement," she went on.
"Whatever way it ends it must end wretchedly for me. All I can
do, Marian, is not to add the remembrance that I have broken my
promise and forgotten my father's dying words, to make that
wretchedness worse."
"What is it you propose, then?" I asked.
"To tell Sir Percival Glyde the truth with my own lips," she
answered, "and to let him release me, if he will, not because I
ask him, but because he knows all."
"What do you mean, Laura, by 'all'? Sir Percival will know enough
(he has told me so himself) if he knows that the engagement is
opposed to your own wishes.
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