you must," he cried imperiously. "I tell you I will sweep
away your objections like the wind sweeps away thistledown. You do not
know what your refusal would mean to me."

"There is something I must tell you," she said quietly. "Last night you
asked me to be your wife; at least let me tell you why--why I do not
think I can."

A strange smile passed over Ricordo's face.

"Yes, tell me," he said quietly.

"I cannot marry you, because I promised I never would."

"Promised you would never marry me!" he cried. "Promised who?"

She told the story which we already know, little thinking of the effect
it had upon her hearer. She omitted no detail which had any importance
in the story. The man's presence caused every incident to come back to
her with painful vividness. The past lived again. Sometimes it seemed to
her that not a stranger, but Leicester, stood beside her while she
spoke.

"And you loved this man--this--this Leicester?" he asked presently.

"Yes, I think so--that is, I must have loved him, or I should never have
promised to be his wife."

"And you gave him up because he was a bad man?"

"Because he insulted me. Because he did not seek me because he loved me,
but because he would win his wager. How could I do otherwise?"

"But he loved you really--that is, afterwards?"

"He said so; but how did I know? He told--those men that it was only to
win the wager."

"And he explained to you that for him the jest had become an earnest
purpose?"

He spoke quietly, as though he were a judge sifting evidence.

"Yes, but when I accused him of having admitted to those--men, less than
a month before the wedding-day, that he only sought to win the wager, he
could not deny it."

"And then you cast him off?"

"I told him I would never see him again."

"And he--what became of him? Ah yes, you told me, he dragged your name
before a public meeting, he fell down drunk on the platform at a public
meeting--and then he committed suicide."

"Yes." She shuddered as she spoke; she never felt the tragedy of the
circumstance as she felt it now.

"And before the day fixed for your wedding, you promised never to marry
another man?"

"Yes."

"And that is the reason why you have never married?"

She did not resent this mode of putting questions to her. Somehow she
felt he had the right. He had asked her to be his wife, and he had the
right to know. Besides, she was strangely wrought upon. If he had not
slept since the p