heeks
fainting pale with emotion, and her arms too languid with happiness to
embrace him--she, to him, was the incarnation of the woman that visits
dreams.

So passed that moment.

The bee ended it; who, impatient with flowers that hid their honey so
deep, had entangled himself in Audrey's hair. And then, seeing that
words, those dreaded things, were on his lips, she tried to kiss them
back. But they came:

"When will you marry me?"

It all swayed a little. And with marvellous rapidity the whole position
started up before her. She saw, with preternatural insight, into its
nooks and corners. Something he had said one day, when they were talking
of the Church view of marriage and divorce, lighted all up. So he had
really never known about her! At this moment of utter sickness, she was
saved from fainting by her sense of humour--her cynicism. Not content to
let her be, people's tongues had divorced her; he had believed them! And
the crown of irony was that he should want to marry her, when she felt so
utterly, so sacredly his, to do what he liked with sans forms or
ceremonies. A surge of bitter feeling against the man who stood between
her and Miltoun almost made her cry out. That man had captured her
before she knew the world or her own soul, and she was tied to him, till
by some beneficent chance he drew his last breath when her hair was grey,
and her eyes had no love light, and her cheeks no longer grew pale when
they were kissed; when twilight had fallen, and the flowers, and bees no
longer cared for her.

It was that feeling, the sudden revolt of the desperate prisoner, which
steeled her to put out her hand, take up the paper, and give it to
Miltoun.

When he had read the little paragraph, there followed one of those
eternities which last perhaps two minutes.

He said, then:

"It's true, I suppose?" And, at her silence, added: "I am sorry."

This queer dry saying was so much more terrible than any outcry, that she
remained, deprived even of the power of breathing, with her eyes still
fixed on Miltoun's face.

The smile of the old Cardinal had come up there, and was to her like a
living accusation. It seemed strange that the hum of the bees and flies
and the gentle swishing of the limetree should still go on outside,
insisting that there was a world moving and breathing apart from her, and
careless of her misery. Then some of her courage came back, and with it
her woman's mute power. It cam