‘If I tell you, will you promise not to be angry with me, nor to feel less my friend than you do now?’ ‘I promise!’ But there was an expression in his eyes that made me drop my own, I could not look at him. ‘Remember, before I speak, how much I wish you well. Hilde!’ (he had never called me by that name before), ‘if I could give you happiness by cutting off my right arm, I would do it at this moment. So that I am really and honestly glad to know that you are glad. The pain only is mine, _amie chérie_; and I can bear that bravely, so long as all is well with you.’ ‘Monsieur, I do not understand what you mean!’ ‘When this appointment was first offered me, I thought I could not take it. I thought it would be impossible to leave St. Pucelle and you. But only a few hours afterwards I met Mademoiselle Markham, and she told me all about your _affaire de cœur_, and I was happy it should be so; only I felt I could not stay and see it.’ ‘What did she tell you?’ I asked quickly. ‘That you are _fiancée_ to Monsieur Sandilands. Ah, you need not blush, Hilde! It is all right if you wish it so. But for me it is better I should go to Algiers, and forget the pleasant times that we have spent together.’ ‘Armand!’ I said vehemently, ‘it is a lie! I am not _fiancée_ to Mr. Sandilands, nor to anybody.’ How his face changed from quiet melancholy to radiant hope. The dullest eye might have interpreted that look. ‘What!’ he exclaimed. ‘You are free!’ ‘I _am_ free.’ ‘And you are sorry I am going to Algiers?’ ‘I _am_ sorry!’ I do not know if there ever lived any women in this world (such as some novelists depict for us) who could cast away the whole of their lives’ happiness for want of a single word to clear up a misunderstanding—but if so, I am not one of them. Armand de Nesselrode looked me full in the face as he put that question, and I should have been ashamed of myself, if I had not answered him truthfully. ‘Hilde!’ he said passionately, ‘will you go with me?’ Then I felt that my woman’s victory was won, and I could afford to be silent and let silence speak for me. ‘I should not have dared to ask for this,’ he went on rapidly, ‘had it not been for the sweet encouragement your words have given me. You have told me that you despise wealth in comparison with love; that you rank a true heart and a strong arm above any earthly advantage, and that you think my honour still unstained. Will you take me, then, beloved Hilde, a poor man, disgraced in the eyes of the world, and with nothing to offer the woman he would make his wife, except a true affection and an earnest desire to prove himself worthy of hers? Oh, Hilde! do not keep me in suspense. I have loved you ever since the day you prayed for me in St. Marie?’ I raised my eyes and looked at the dear face lifted so pleadingly to my own, and felt that nothing on this earth could repay me for the loss I should sustain in losing him.