He pitied her so much, and yet he could not help her; her malady was past remedy. And, as she had told him, it was no one's fault--it was only a miserable mistake. He had never had her heart--he saw it plainly now. Many little things in the past, which he had scarcely remembered at the time, came back to his memory--little details of that week at Shadonake, when Maurice had lived in the same house with her, whilst he had only gone over daily to see her. Always, in those days, Maurice had been by her side, and Vera had been dreamily happy, with that fixed look of content with which the presence of the man she loves best beautifies and poetises a woman's face. Sir John was not a very observant man; but now, after it was all over, these things came back to him. The night of the ball, Mrs. Romer's mysterious hints, and his own vague disquietude at her words; later on Maurice's reasonless refusal to be present at his wedding, and Vera's startled face of dismay when he had asked her to go and plead with him to stay for it.
They had struggled against their hearts, it was clear, these poor lovers, whose lives were both tied up and bound before ever they had met each other. But nature had been too strong for them; and the woman, at least, had torn herself free from the chains that had become insupportable to her.
They walked on silently, side by side, round the square. Some girls were playing at lawn-tennis within the garden. There was an occasional shout or a ringing laugh from their fresh young voices. A footman was walking along the pavement opposite, with two fat pugs and a white Spitz in the last stage of obesity in tow, which it was his melancholy duty to parade daily up and down for their mid-day airing. An occasional hansom dashing quickly by broke the stillness of the "empty" hour. Years and years afterwards every detail of the scene came back to his memory with the distinctness of a photograph when he passed once more through the square.
"You have been no curse to me, Vera," he said, presently, breaking the silence. "Do not reproach yourself; it is I who was a madman to deem that I could win your love. Child, we are both sufferers; but time heals most things, and we must learn to wait and be patient. Will you ever marry, Vera?"