"But," said
Harold, "your mother has only too good reasons for withholding you
from me, and there is nothing for it but to submit, and give one
another up."
"But we do not leave off loving one another," said poor Viola.
"We cannot do what we cannot."
"And when we are old--"
"That would be a mental reservation," said Harold. "There must be no
mutual understanding of coming together again. I promised your
mother. Because I am a guilty man, I am not to break up your life."
He made her at last resign her will into his, she only feeling that
his judgment could not be other than decisive, and that she could not
resist him, even for his own sake. He took her for a moment into his
arms, and exchanged one long burning kiss, then, while she was almost
faint and quite passive with emotion, he laid her on the sofa, and
called her mother. "Lady Diana," he said, "we give up all claim to
one another's promise, in obedience to you. Do we not, Viola?"
"Yes," she faintly said.
He gave her brow one more kiss, and was gone.
He took his horse home, and sent in a pencil note to me: "All over;
don't wait, for me.--H. A."
I was dreadfully afraid he would go off to Australia, or do something
desperate, but Count Stanislas reassured me that this would be unlike
Harold's present self, since his strength had come to be used, not in
passion, but in patience.
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