"
"Then you haven't given up smoking?"
"Well--ahem--no. I have thought of doing so, but--"
His extreme complacence had rather disconcerted Grace, and the
question about smoking had been to effect a diversion. Presently
she said, firmly, and with a moisture in her eye that he could not
see, as her mind returned to poor Giles's "frustrate ghost," "I
don't like you--to speak lightly on that subject, if you did speak
lightly. To be frank with you--quite frank--I think of him as my
betrothed lover still. I cannot help it. So that it would be
wrong for me to join you."
Fitzpiers was now uneasy. "You say your betrothed lover still,"
he rejoined. "When, then, were you betrothed to him, or engaged,
as we common people say?"
"When you were away."
"How could that be?"
Grace would have avoided this; but her natural candor led her on.
"It was when I was under the impression that my marriage with you
was about to be annulled, and that he could then marry me. So I
encouraged him to love me.
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