Eva shook her head. Her brief trance of happiness was broken up.
“But I will have it so,” persisted Ivon, passionately. “On all the earth there is not another woman who shall be my wife.”
“Let us go now,” answered Eva, sadly. “Your mother will be watching. I should have remembered her look, when she first saw me standing by Mrs. Carter.”
“But for that I might not have said here and now, that no man living ever loved a woman as I love you,” said Ivon.
Eva lifted her eyes; they were full of tears.
“I shall never forget that you wished to atone for her injustice.”
“Atone! Girl, I love you devotedly, madly. She knows it. I have told her so. And you love me.”
Eva dashed the tears from her eyes.
“Yes, I love you so well that nothing shall induce me to degrade you, by an unsuitable or unauthorized marriage. Your mother——”
“My mother is dead long ago! This lady was my father’s wife; kind and generous as any real mother could be, till now. I have never wished to dispute her authority; but here it must end!”