She could not speak, for sobs which she resolutely suppressed would rise in her throat, but she allowed her hand to rest in his; there was some solace even in this slight touch.
"Is it not strange," he said, "that life will go on just the same? The birds will sing, the leaves in autumn will wither and will fall. Your dear eyes will greet the first swallow when it circles over the towers of St. Gervais. Nature will not wear mourning because a miserable reprobate is eating out his heart in an agony of the might-have-been."
"I pray you, milor, release my hand," she murmured, for of a truth she no longer could bear the strain. "My father waits--"
"And the husband whom you love--nay, he must be a good man since God hath loved him so--"
"Farewell, Rose Marie--my rosemary--'tis for remembrance, you know."
He tasted the supreme joy to the full--all the joy that was left to him now--five finger tips, cold against his burning lips, and they trembled beneath each kiss. Then she turned and followed her father out of the room.
For a moment he remained alone, standing there like one drunken or dazed. Mechanically his hand went to the inner pocket of his coat and anon he pulled out a withered, crumbling bunch of snowdrops, the tiny bouquet which she had dropped at his feet that day in Paris, when first he saw her, and her blue eyes kindled the flame of a great and overwhelming passion.
Nay! thou art a man, and of what thou doest, thou art not ashamed; but, proud man that thou art, there is thy Master, Love; he rules thee with his rod of steel, and if thou sin, beware! for that rod will smite thee 'til thou kneel humbly in the dust, with the weakness of unshed tears shaming thy manhood, and with a faded bunch of snowdrops pressed against thy lips, to smother a miserable, intensely human cry of awful agony.
What be her cards you ask? Even these:-- The heart, that doth but crave More, having fed; the diamond, Skilled to make base seem brave; The club, for smiting in the dark The spade, to dig a grave. --DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.
The one supreme moment of complete and abject weakness was soon past; it had gone by in solitude. No one saw the fall of the defiant reprobate brought to the dust by the intensity of his grief. No one but God and triumphant Love.