“To tell Sir Percival Glyde the truth with my own lips,” she answered, “and to let him release me, if he will, not because I ask him, but because he knows all.”

“What do you mean, Laura, by ‘all’? Sir Percival will know enough (he has told me so himself) if he knows that the engagement is opposed to your own wishes.”

“Can I tell him that, when the engagement was made for me by my father, with my own consent? I should have kept my promise, not happily, I am afraid, but still contentedly⁠—” she stopped, turned her face to me, and laid her cheek close against mine⁠—“I should have kept my engagement, Marian, if another love had not grown up in my heart, which was not there when I first promised to be Sir Percival’s wife.”

“Laura! you will never lower yourself by making a confession to him?”

“I shall lower myself, indeed, if I gain my release by hiding from him what he has a right to know.”

“He has not the shadow of a right to know it!”