“You have many friends who love you, Miss Fairlie. Your happy future is
the dear object of many hopes. May I say, at parting, that it is the
dear object of MY hopes too?”
The tears flowed fast down her cheeks. She rested one trembling hand on
the table to steady herself while she gave me the other. I took it in
mine—I held it fast. My head drooped over it, my tears fell on it, my
lips pressed it—not in love; oh, not in love, at that last moment, but
in the agony and the self-abandonment of despair.
“For God’s sake, leave me!” she said faintly.
The confession of her heart’s secret burst from her in those pleading
words. I had no right to hear them, no right to answer them—they were
the words that banished me, in the name of her sacred weakness, from
the room. It was all over. I dropped her hand, I said no more. The
blinding tears shut her out from my eyes, and I dashed them away to
look at her for the last time. One look as she sank into a chair, as
her arms fell on the table, as her fair head dropped on them wearily.
One farewell look, and the door had closed upon her—the great gulf
of separation had opened between us—the image of Laura Fairlie was a
memory of the past already.
The End of Hartright’s Narrative.