"If you are really sorry for me," he said, still in the deep-shaken voice which moved her to so uneasy a sense of pain and wrong-doing, "you will do all you can for me. You will help me to begin a new life. I love you so much that I am sure I could teach you to love me. I am certain of it, Lesley—dearest—let me try!"
Did she falter for a moment? There flashed over her the remembrance of Maurice's anger, of his continued absence, of the probability that he would never come back to her; and the dream of a tender love that could envelop the rest of her lonely life assailed her like a temptation. She hesitated, and in that moment's pause Oliver drew nearer to her side.
"Kiss me, Lesley!" he whispered, and his head bent over hers, his lips almost touched her own.
Then came the reaction—the awakening.
"Oh, no, no! Do not touch me. Do not come near me. I do not love you. And if I did"—said Lesley, almost violently—"if I loved you more than all the world, do you think that I would betray Ethel, my friend? that I would be so false to her—and to myself?"
"Then you do love me?" he murmured, undisturbed by her vehemence, which he did not think boded ill for his chances, after all.
"No, I do not."
"You are mistaken. Kiss me once, Lesley, and you will know. You will feel your love then."
"You insult me, Mr. Trent. Love you? Come one step nearer and I shall hate you. Oh!" she said, recoiling, as a gleam from the lamp revealed to her the wild expression in his eyes, the tension of his white lips and nostrils, the strange transformation in those usually impassive features which revealed the brutal nature below the polished surface of the man, "I hate you now!"
She was close to the wall, and her head came in sudden contact with the old-fashioned bell-rope. She seized it firmly.