"Well, how shall we tell him?"
Then a thought came to me, and I felt all over a desperate thrill of excitement.
"Will you do nothing until to-morrow?" I said. "I have an idea which I will tell to no one. Let us go back to Claridge's now, and do not come and see me again until to-morrow at twelve. Then, if this has failed we will say good-bye. It is a desperate chance."
"And you won't tell me what it is?"
"No. Please trust me; it is my life as well as yours, remember."
"My queen!" he said. "Yes, I will do that, or anything else you wish, only never, never good-bye. I am a man, after all, and have numbers of influential relations. I can do something else in life just be a Guardsman, and we shall get enough money to live quite happily on, though we might not be very grand people. I will never say good-bye--do you hear? Promise me you will never say it, either."
I was silent.
"Evangeline, darling!" he cried in anguish, his eyebrows right up in the old way, while two big tears welled up in his beautiful eyes. "My God! won't you answer me?"
"Yes, I will," I said, and I threw all my reserve to the winds, and flung my arms round his neck, passionately.
"I love you with my, heart and soul, and pray to God we shall never say good-bye."
When I got back to Claridge's, for the first time in my life I felt a little faint. Lady Merrenden had driven me back herself, and left me with every assurance of her devotion and affection for us. I had said good-bye to Robert for the day at Carlton House Terrace.
They do not yet know me, either of them, quite; or what I can and will do.
CLARIDGE'S Monday night.
I felt to carry out my plan I must steady my mind a little, so I wrote my journal, and that calmed me.
Of all the things I was sure of in the world, I was most sure that I loved Robert far too well to injure his prospects. On the other hand, to throw him away without a struggle was too cruel to both of us. If mamma's mother was nobody, all the rest of my family were fine old fighters and gentlemen, and I really prayed to their shades to help me now.
Then I rang and ordered some iced water, and when I had thought deeply for a few minutes while I sipped it, I sat down to my writing-table. My hand did not shake, though I felt at a deadly tension. I addressed the envelope first, to steady myself: "To "His Grace "The Duke of Torquilstone, "Vavasour House, "St. James's, S.W."