“But my love for you and yours for me,” he had insisted, “does that not count?”
“I do love you, Silvanus,” she replied, her voice softening for the moment, “but it’s no use, you must see that. I have to marry Hugo, there is nothing else I can do. I shall always remember you and I hope you will remember me, but it would be foolish for us to be married, it would really.”
He could recall at the time feeling as though someone had dealt him a sharp blow on the head. He felt numbed, almost as though he could not comprehend what had happened.
Then later had come the pain and the anger, even the hatred, that someone could have hurt him so cruelly.
He had never forgotten her and he had never wanted to marry any other woman. He had made love to dozens of them and they had loved him, perhaps tryi
