deprecates yet cannot wholly withstand.

"I am a widow of six months," she reminded him, as she had reminded
him once before. Her widowhood was proving a most convenient refuge.
"It is not for me to listen to a suitor, however my foolish heart
may incline. Come to me in another six months' time."

"And you will wed me then?" he bleated.

By an effort her eyes smiled down upon him, although her face was
a trifle drawn.

"Have I not said that I will listen to no suitor? and what is that
but a suitor's question?"

He caught her hand; he would have fallen on his knees there and
then, at her feet, on the grass still wet with the night's mist,
but that he in time bethought him of how sadly his fine apparel
would be the sufferer.

"Yet I shall not sleep, I shall know no rest, no peace until you
have given me an answer. Just an answer is all I ask. I will set
a curb upon my impatience afterwards, and go through my period of
ah - probation without murmuring. Say that you, will marry me in
six months' time - at Easter, say."

She saw that an answer she must give, and so she gave him the answer
that he craved. And he - poor fool! - never caught the ring of her
voice, as false as the ring of a base coin; never guessed that in
promising she told herself it would be safe to break that promise