"I have come ..." she paused and passing in front of him, stood there with her back to the balustrade and her hands behind her in an attitude which was habitual to her. "I have come," she began again deliberately, "to let you off that promise--Not that you have kept it very well, you know--" She broke off and gave a short laugh, such as a man may hear perhaps once in his whole life, and hearing it, must know that he has not lived in vain. "But I don't mind," she said. She moved uneasily. For her eyes, growing accustomed to the darkness, could discern his face. She returned to the spot where Marcos had first discovered her, behind his chair. "And, Marcos--you made another promise. You said that we were only going to play at being married--a sort of game." "Yes," he answered steadily. He did not turn. He never saw her hands stretched out towards him. Then suddenly he gave a start and sat still as stone. Her hands were on his hair, soft as the touch of a bird. Her fingers crept down his forehead and closed over his eyes firmly and tenderly--a precaution which was unnecessary in the darkness--for she was leaning over his chair and her hair, dusky as the night itself, fell over his face like a curtain. "Then I think it is a stupid game--and I do not want to play it any longer ... Marcos." End of Project Gutenberg's The Velvet Glove, by Henry Seton Merriman