Her head was lifted quickly, as though she saw, and was looking him in
the eyes. "Oh no, oh no," she cried, "I never loved him. I was sorry
for him--that was all."
"Marie, Marie," he said gently, while she shook her head a little
pitifully, "did you, then, love any one else?"
She was silent for a space and then she said: "Yes--Oh, Hugh, I am so
sorry for your sake that I am blind, and cannot marry you."
"But, my darling, you shall not always be blind, you shall see again.
And you shall marry me also. As though--life of my life! as though one's
love could live but by the sight of the eyes!"
"My poor Hugh! But, blind, I could not marry you. It would not be just
to you."
He smiled with a happy hopeful determination; "But if you should see
again?"
"Oh, then. . . ."
She married him, and in time her sight returned, though not completely.
Tryon never told her, as the Governor had told him, that Rive Laflamme,
when a prisoner in New Caledonia, had a wife in Paris: and he is man
enough to hope that she may never know.
But to this hour he has a profound regret that duels are not in vogue
among Englishmen.