“Think of your mother, Lord Lufton.”
“What can I do better than give her as a daughter the best and sweetest girl I have ever met? When my mother really knows you, she will love you as I do. Lucy, say one word to me of comfort.”
“I will say no word to you that shall injure your future comfort. It is impossible that I should be your wife.”
“Do you mean that you cannot love me?”
“You have no right to press me any further,” she said; and sat down upon the sofa, with an angry frown upon her forehead.
“By heavens,” he said, “I will take no such answer from you till you put your hand upon your heart, and say that you cannot love me.”
“Oh, why should you press me so, Lord Lufton?”
“Why! because my happiness depends upon it; because it behoves me to know the very truth. It has come to this, that I love you with my whole heart, and I must know how your heart stands towards me.”
She had now again risen from the sofa, and was looking steadily in his face.
“Lord Lufton,” she said, “I cannot love you,” and as she spoke she did put her hand, as he had desired, upon her heart.