eemed as naught. But
now my eyes are opened. I am no longer blind. I have brought you here to
tell you I will give you back your promise to marry me, your
_freedom_"--with a sudden bitterness, as suddenly suppressed--"on _one_
condition."

"And that?" breathlessly.

"Is, that you will never marry Roger without my consent."

The chance of regaining her liberty is so sweet to Dulce at this first
moment that it chases from her all other considerations. Oh, to be free
again! In vain she strives to hide her gladness. It will _not_ be
hidden. Her eyes gleam; her lips get back their color; there is such an
abandonment of joy and exultation in her face that the man at her
side--the man who is now resigning all that makes life sweet to
him--feels his heart grow mad with bitter hatred of her, himself, and
all the world as he watches her with miserable eyes. And he--poor
fool!--had once hoped he might win the priceless treasure of this girl's
love! No words could convey the contempt and scorn with which he regards
himself.

"Do not try to restrain your relief," he says, in a hoarse, unnatural
tone, seeing she has turned her head a little aside, as though to avoid
his searching gaze. "You know the condition I impose--you are prepared
to abide by it?"

Dulce hesitates. "Later on he will forget all this, and give his consent
to my marrying--any one," she thinks, hurriedly, in spite of the other
voice within her, that bids her beware. Then out loud she says, quietly:

"Yes."

Even if he _should_ prove unrelenting, she tells herself, it will be
better to be an old maid than an unloving wife. She will be rid of this
hateful entanglement that has been embittering her life for months,
and--and, of course, he _won't_ keep her to this absurd arrangement
after a while.

"You swear it?"

"I swear it," says Dulce, answering as one might in a dream. Hers is a
dream, happy to recklessness, in which she is fast losing herself.

"It is an oath," he says again, as if to give her a last chance to
escape.

"It is," replies she, softly, still wrapt in her dream of freedom. She
may now love Roger without any shadow coming between them, and--ah! how
divine a world it is!--he may perhaps love her too!

"Remember," says Gower, sternly, letting each word drop from him as if
with the settled intention of imprinting or burning them upon her brain,
"I shall never relent about this. You have given me your solemn oath,
and--I shall _keep you to