"Make me, then."
She was silent.
"Forgive me. I am rude: I cannot help it. I will not go unless you say, 'I do not love you.' Nothing but this shall drive me away."
Francesca's training in her childhood had been by a Catholic governess; she never quite lost its effect. Now she raised her hand to a little gold cross that hung at her neck, her fingers closing on it with a despairing clasp. "Ah, Christ, have pity!" her heart cried. "Blessed Mother of God, forgive me! have mercy upon me!"
Her face was frightfully pale, but her voice did not tremble as she gave him her hand, and said gently, "Go, then, my friend. I do not love you."
He took her hand, held it close for a moment, and then, without another look or word, put it tenderly down, and was gone.
So absorbed was he in painful thought that, passing down the long avenue with bent head, he did not notice, nor even see, a gentleman who, coming from the opposite direction, looked at him at first carelessly, and then searchingly, as he went by.
This gentleman, a man in the prime of life, handsome, stately, and evidently at home here, scrutinized the stranger with a singular intensity,—made a movement as though he would speak to him,—and then, drawing back, went with hasty steps towards the house.
Had Willie looked up, beheld this face and its expression, returned the scrutiny of the one, and comprehended the meaning of the other, while memory recalled a picture once held in his hands, some things now obscured would have been revealed to him, and a problem been solved. As it was, he saw nothing, moved mechanically onward to the carriage, seated himself and said, "Home!"
This young man was neither presumptuous nor vain. He had been once repulsed and but now utterly rejected. He had no reason to hope, and yet—perhaps it was his poetical and imaginative temperament—he could not resign himself to despair.