After luncheon her mother had joined her in the drawing-room, when in
the course of a general conversation she began to speak about their
native country and their family, and about the pleasure it would be for
them to revisit them after so long an absence. Kondjé-Gul let her go on
in this strain, thinking that she was just indulging in one of those
dreams of a far-off future which the imagination is fond of cherishing,
however impossible their realisation may be. But soon she was very much
surprised by noticing that her mother was discussing this scheme as one
which might be carried out at an early date. She then questioned her
about it. At last, after a lot of fencing, Madame Murrah informed her
that she had learnt a marriage was arranged between me and Anna
Campbell, who had been betrothed to me for a long while past; also that
this marriage would take place in six months' time, and that I should
have to go away with my wife the day after the wedding.
The end of all these arrangements would be the abandonment of
Kondjé-Gul.
I was dismayed by this unexpected revelation. The plan of my marriage
with Anna had remained a family secret, known only to my uncle, to
herself, to my aunt, and to me. How had it got to Madame Murrah's ears?
I was unable to conceal my uneasiness.
"But this marriage is true then?" continued my poor Kondjé with an
anxious look in my face.
"Nothing is true but our love!" I replied, distressed by her fears;
"nothing is true but this, that I mean to love you always, and always to
live with you as I do now."
"But this marriage?" she again repeated.
It was impossible for me to escape any longer from the necessity of
making a confession which I had intended to have prepared her for later
on.
"Listen, my darling," I said, taking her by the hands, "and above all
things trust me as you listen to me! I love you, I love no one but you;
you are my wife, my happiness, my life. Do you believe me?"
"Yes, dear, I believe you. But what about her?" she added in a tremble.
"What about Anna Campbell? Are you going to marry her?"
"Come," I said, wishing to begin by soothing her fears; "if, as so often
happens in your own country, I were obliged, if only in order to assure
our own happiness, to make another marriage, would not you understand
that this was only a sacrifice which I owed to my uncle if he required
it of me--a family arrangement, in fact, which could not separate us
from each other? What have you to fear so long as I only love you? Did
you trouble yourself about Hadidjé or Zouhra?"