He kept silent, studying the surrendered reticence of the bent head.
"She accepted me yesterday, Perior." Henge repeated it helplessly.
Perior put his hand on his shoulder. "My dear Henge," he said.
Arthur looked up. "I don't know why I should come to you with it. I am broken. I could cry like a baby. I love that child, Perior! You saw her yesterday; yes, that is why I came. She accepted me yesterday, you know. Did she say anything to you about it?--when you saw her? You see"--he smiled miserably--"I want you to turn the knife in my wound."
"I heard it," said Perior, feeling that a rigid adherence to perhaps deceptive truth was all that was left to him.
"But she gave you no reason to think that she had changed her mind?"
"What has Camelia said to you, Arthur? One may interpret it differently," said Perior, detesting himself.
Sir Arthur's face resumed the blankness of its helpless wonder.
"I got back this morning and she sent for me. I found her white, woeful, resolute. She said, 'I made a mistake. I can't marry you. I am unworthy of you.' That to me, Perior! to me! and only yesterday! Oh!--I could have sworn she cared for me! I don't blame her; don't think it. It was all pity--a fancied tenderness; the shock of realization showed her the difference. She can't love me. She unworthy! The courage--the cruelty even, were worthy; but she repeated that again and again."
"Was that all she said?" Perior asked presently.
"All? Oh no, that was only the beginning. I tortured her for an hour with pleadings and protestations. With her it was mere repetition. She did not love me; she felt it as soon as she had accepted me. She told me that she sent for you--not for counsel, but to see if her misery was not mere morbid fancy; she said that Rodrigg--the brute!--rushed in upon her with implied accusations; to me she confessed--dearest creature--that she had been foolishly hopeful, foolishly confident in her eagerness for my cause. She heaped blame upon herself. She called herself mean, and weak, and shallow--Ah! as if I did not understand the added nobility! I have not one hard thought of her, not a touch of the jilted lover's bitterness. It is my misfortune to see too well the worthiness of the woman I have lost."