"I ought to ask that question," said he. "Can you forgive me? I am
afraid not. No man can say to a woman what I have said to you,
and be quite forgiven. You will never think of me again as you
would have done if I had not spoken. I knew that before I did it. As
for me, I can only go on with my old life. It is not gay, and will not
be the gayer for our talk to-night."
Madeleine relented a little: "Friendships like ours are not so easily
broken," she said. "Do not do me another injustice. You will see
me again before you go?"
He assented and bade good-night. Mrs. Lee, weary and disturbed in
mind, hastened to her room. "When Miss Sybil comes in, tell her
that I am not very well, and have gone to bed," were her
instructions to her maid, and Sybil thought she knew the cause of
this headache.
But before Carrington's departure he had one more ride with Sybil,
and reported to her the result of the interview, at which both of
them confessed themselves much depressed. Carrington expressed
some hope that Madeleine meant, after a sort, to give a kind of
pledge by saying that she had no intention of marrying Mr.
Ratcliffe, but Sybil shook her head emphatically:
"How can a woman tell whether she is going to accept a man until
she is asked?" said she with entire confidence, as though she were
stating the simplest fact in the world. Carrington looked puzzled,
and ventured to ask whether women did not generally make up
their minds beforehand on such an interesting point; but Sybil
overwhelmed him with contempt: "What good will they do by
making up their minds, I should like to know? of course they
would go and do the opposite.
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