“We were just at the top of the hill—where you turn along the cliff towards Briarmount. Waldo pressed my arm between his arm and his side, so that I couldn’t draw it away. He stopped, and stood facing Nina like that, making me face her too, with my arm in his like that. ‘Now you understand our views, and you can drop the subject,’ he said in a low voice; it trembled a little. I felt very excited; I didn’t know how she would take it, what she would say; his voice was brusque, angry, contemptuous. But I wasn’t the least prepared for what did happen. She stood opposite to us for a minute, smiling sarcastically, or trying to smile; then her mouth began to work, and her lips turned down, and—she began to cry! Quite loudly—like a passionate child. What I’d been through is supposed to be the greatest humiliation a woman can go through—being taken and left. But this that she was going through seemed to me infinitely worse. I whispered, ‘Nina!’ and tried to draw my arm away from Waldo; I felt that I must go to her. He wouldn’t let me; he held my arm in a vise, and himself just stood looking at her, pale as pale, absolutely quiet! She tried to speak, but couldn’t get any words out, because of her sobbing. She gave it up, and began to undo her mackintosh, to get her handkerchief. She found it, and wiped her eyes; but she was sobbing still. I clung to Waldo now, for support; my legs were shaking under me; I didn’t sob, but I felt tears on my cheeks. At last she threw out her arm towards us, in a threatening sort of gesture, sobbed out, ‘You’ll be sorry for this!’ turned away, and hurried off along the cliff towards Briarmount. Her figure swayed as she walked. It was very pitiful.
“But Waldo watched her without any sign of pity—watched her till she was quite a long way off. Then he turned to me, put his hands under my arms and drew me close to him; he covered my face with kisses—my face wet with both rain and tears. ‘You love me, you love me, Lucinda?’ he whispered. I didn’t speak; I let him kiss me. I think I did love him; at any rate, I was completely overmastered. Now I began to sob myself, just repeating ‘Waldo! Waldo!’ through my sobs—nothing else—and clinging to him.”
Lucinda came to a stop and then turned her eyes to mine—they had been looking into the dimness of the _salle-à-manger_—“So—it happened,” she said.