“Then you will listen to me?—you will yet be mine? I will protect you, Zana, in the face of all these haughty Clares. I am now independent.”
“It cannot be,” I said, firmly, but not with the austere repulsion of former days. “I shall never love—never marry—my destiny is fixed.”
“Oh, Zana,” he said, “why do you repulse me thus? What have I done to deserve it? Have not all others forsaken you?”
“Alas! yes!” I said, weeping.
“Have they not treated you worse than a Russian serf or negro slave, while I have always been firm in my devotion, true as heaven itself in my love? Is this love at such times nothing, that you cast it so scornfully away?”
“I do not cast it away scornfully, but am grateful, very grateful; still it is impossible that I should ever love you, or become your wife.”
“Tell me why, Zana!”
“Because I have no power over the affections of my own heart; they are the only tyrants I cannot overcome,” I said.
“But give me time; only endure my presence,” he persisted, seating himself by me so gently that I was almost unconscious of the act; “these tyrant affections must yield to the power of love like mine.”
I shook my head and made a motion to rise, but he held me down with a gentle pressure of his hand on my arm.