I
refuse to be bound. I know now the one thing I wanted most to know,
Billie--that you do not love him. Oh, you can never make me think
that again--"
"Stop!" and she was looking straight at me again. "I shall listen to you
no longer, Lieutenant Galesworth. I cannot deny the truth of much which
you have said, but it is not generous of you to thus take advantage of
what was overheard. It was merely a quarrel, and not to be taken
seriously. He is coming back, and--and I am going to marry him."
There was a little catch in her voice, yet she finished the sentence
bravely enough, flinging the words at me in open defiance.
"When? To-night?"
"Yes, immediately, as soon as Captain Le Gaire can confer with my
father."
I smiled, not wholly at ease, yet confident I knew her struggle.
"You might deceive some one else, Miss Billie," I said quietly, "and
perhaps if I were not here this programme might indeed be carried out--I
believe Le Gaire is cur enough to insist upon it. But I am here, and you
are not going to marry him, unless you tell me with your own lips that
you love the man."
She stared into my eyes, as though doubting my sanity.
"Will you consent to say that?"
"I deny your right to even ask."
"Yet I shall take silence as a negative, and act accordingly.
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