"Come, Jan, come; you exaggerate. You must be calm, dearest. Nellie and I are very fond of one another, but——"
"You know she loves you—you know she loves you to death."
"My darling, I don't know anything of the sort. But supposing she did—well, I am very sorry, very deeply grieved if she is unhappy; but I don't love her—or any other woman in the world but you, Jan. If she had saved my life a thousand times, it would make no difference. You, Jan, you are the breath of my life and the pulse of my blood."
He spoke with passion, for he was roused to combat this strange idea that threatened all his joy. As she stood before him, in her fairness and distress, he forgot his searchings of heart, his tenderness for Nellie, everything, except that she, and she alone, was the woman to be his, and neither another nor she herself should prevent it.
Looking at him, she read this, or some of it, in his eyes, for she shrank back from him, and, clasping her hands, moaned:
"Don't, don't! You must go to her—you belong to her. She saved you, not I. You are hers, not mine."
"Jan, this is madness! She is nothing to me; you are all the world."
"You must despise me," she said in a wondering way, "and yet you say that!"
"If I did despise you, still it would be true. But I worship you."