'I hope they will be kind words,' she said. 'As we are to part so
soon, there should be none unkind spoken.'

'I do not know much about kindness,' he replied. Then he paused and
tried to think how best the thunderbolt might be hurled. 'There is
hardly room for kindness where there was once so much more than
kindness; where there was so much more,--or the pretence of it.'
Then he waited again, as though he expected that she should speak.
But she would not speak at all. If he had aught to say, let him say
it. 'Perhaps, Marie, you have in truth forgotten all the promises
you once made me?' Though this was a direct question she would not
answer it. Her words to him should be as few as possible, and the
time for such words had not come as yet. 'It suits you no doubt to
forget them now, but I cannot forget them. You have been false to
me, and have broken my heart. You have been false to me, when my
only joy on earth was in believing in your truth. Your vow was for
ever and ever, and within one short year you are betrothed to
another man! And why?--because they tell you that he is rich and
has got a house full of furniture! You may prove to be a blessing
to his house. Who can say? On mine, you and your memory will be a
curse,--lasting all my lifetime!' And so the thunderbolt had been
hurled.

And it fell as a thunderbolt. What she had expected had not been at
all like to this. She had known that he would rebuke her; but,
feeling strong in her own innocence and her own purity, knowing or
thinking that she knew that the fault had all been his, not
believing--having got rid of all belief--that he still loved her,
she had fancied that his rebuke would be unjust, cruel, but
bearable. Nay; she had thought that she could almost triumph over