He did not urge her to speak. They had reached a green lane just outside the gardens--a graceful acknowledgment of the privileges of Nature on the outskirts of artificiality. There was a warm sigh of wild thyme in the air. A bee hovered drowsily upon the scent. Two yellow butterflies whirled in their dance above a bank of primroses.
"The butterflies have an aëry dance of their own, and so have the dragon-flies," he said. "I have watched them by my lake. Did I tell you that there is a tiny lake in my grounds? One can see its gleam from the windows of the house. It is pleasant to stand at the top of the terrace-steps and look across the greensward to the basin of my lake. Very early in the summer morning the deer come to drink there; I have seen the graceful creatures trooping through the dawn, and every now and again a hind would stop for a moment to scratch its neck with a delicate hind-foot, and then bound onward to join its brethren."
Still she did not speak. The butterflies fluttered past her face, but she did not follow them with her eyes.
"Sweet one, I grow alarmed," he said; "pray tell me all that is on your mind--in your heart. I think I can promise you that its weight will be lessened when you have told me of it."
"Alas!" she said, "nothing can lessen my fault--my shame."
"That is a word which I will not allow any one to speak in connection with you," he said. "You cannot frighten me, my dear; I have looked into your eyes."
"I have been guilty--I am ashamed. I gave you my promise, not because I loved you, or because I hoped to love you, but solely because singing in public had become so great a terror to me that I welcomed the earliest chance that came of freeing myself. Let me take back my promise. I am unworthy of so good a man."
"Ah! is it not enough? I tell you that I gave you my promise only because I was selfish. I was ready to sacrifice you so that I might gain my own ends."
"Ah, surely that were to pay too heavy a price for your freedom!" said he. "What! you were willing to submit to the rule of an elderly and arbitrary husband so that you might escape from the irksome flatteries of the crowds of discriminating people who have always delighted to do you honour? Do you wonder that I ask you if you do not think that you offered too high a price for what you hoped to gain?"