And her other hand came to her heart, to his glittering pledge upon her finger....

Canning stood watching her, paling and purpling.  How they had come to this he knew no more than Carlisle; and no more than she could he force his steps backward.  In truth, the deeps of him had never so passionately desired her as now, yearning beyond reason or understanding to the untamed spirit.  And yet ...  What did he know of her, whom he thought he knew so well?  She had flirted with a young drunkard, fraternized with a low crank, inextricably involved herself in the scandals of a suicide.  Taxed with these things, she was wantonly rebellious, contemptuously indifferent to his wishes.  Lovely and wild she stood there.  And yet ...

He heard his hoarse voice saying:  “Think, Carlisle.  You are sure that this is what you wish ...”

“You leave me no alternative.”

“Oh, but I have ...  I do.”

“Not one that I can accept.”

“Then you force me to say good-bye.”

“Good-bye.”

His legs could not have heard the marching-order; he remained rooted where he stood.  Ebbings and flowings of color mottled his handsome face.

“One last word ...  Is it to come to this?  We stand ... at the final parting of the ways.  Think ...  This is what you wish?”

If he still hoped for impossible reconciliation, or if merely some instinct moved him to put the burden for the breaking upon her, Carlisle did not know.  She was past arguing now.

“This is yours.”

On the pink palm he had kissed such a little while ago she held out the glorious diamond he had given her in the first radiance of the engagement.  Canning saw no way of escaping the offering; he accepted it with a stiff bow, dropped it in the pocket of his coat.  But it was a business to which even he quite failed to impart any dignity.

He looked blindly about for his hat and stick, remembered that he had left them outside, turned and faced his love again.  Between them passed a long look.

“Then ... this is good-bye.”

“Good-bye,” said Cally again.

And then Hugo opened the door of papa’s study and went away.  And in a moment there was the sound of the front door shutting.

Was it over, then?  Was the parting of lovers so brief, so final?...

Cally started, as from a trance.  She ran out of the study and through the dark library to the drawing-room and the front windows.  Just in time, she stood behind the curtains, and caught a last glimpse of Canning’s receding back.  Brave and dear it looked, departing.

Over and over she said to herself:  “He’s gone ...  Hugo’s gone ...  He has thrown me over ...”

Gone was the prince of lovers.  Calamity fell upon calamity.  It would be better to be dead.  And suddenly all that was hard and resisting in the girl broke with the taut strain, broke with a poignant bodily throe, and she fell face downward into a great chair, weeping with wild abandon.