Alice took the volume and began to read in a low voice:

"Je n'aimais qu'elle au monde, et vivre un jour sans elle
Me semblait un destin plus affreux que la mort.
Je me souviens pourtant qu'en cette nuit cruelle
Pour briser mon lien je fis un long effort.
Je la nommai cent fois perfide et déloyale,
Je comptai tous les maux qu'elle m'avait causés."

She stopped suddenly, her eyes full of pain.

"You don't think that, you _can't_ think that of me?" she pleaded.

"I'd rather think you a coquette than--" Again he checked himself at the
sight of her trouble. He could not speak harshly to her.

"You dear child," he went on tenderly. "I'll never believe any ill of you,
never. I won't even ask your reasons; but I want some encouragement,
something to work for. I've got to have it. Just let me go on hoping; say
that in six months or--or even a year you will be my own
sweetheart--promise me that and I'll wait patiently. Can't you promise me
that?"

But again she shook her head, while her eyes filled slowly with tears.

And now his face darkened. "Then you will never be my wife? Never? No
matter what I do or how long I wait? Is that it?"

"That's it," she repeated with a little sob.