"Why not? Why should we not speak of love now—now, aye, and always? Or is your passion so poor and sickly a thing that a puff from the wind of propriety kills it? Not speak of such things! I would plight my love to you across the very body of the dead man!" She spoke with passionate vehemence. "Remember what I told you—your life is mine. You cannot escape me. Now, tell me, do you love me?"
"I have given my answer, and if you ask that question again to-day I will not stop in the room," I said angrily: the woman's persistency increasing my disgust.
She laughed—a half hysterical laugh of anger.
"So you will not stop in the room and will never, I suppose, return. Be careful," she cried, with one of her quick passionate changes. "Or I will send you away and never let you come back except begging for mercy on your knees for yourself and your sister." She turned away and stood by the window; and I could see by her movements that she was struggling with violent emotions.
She came back at length, the face paler and the voice not so steady.
"I will ask you if you love me," she said. "And I dare you to go away from the room."
I accepted the challenge without an instant's hesitation.
"I am going. I will see you when you are cooler," and I went to the door.
With a quick rush she prevented my opening it, and putting her back to it stared at me in the most violent passion, which thickened her voice as she spoke.
"You shall go directly—if you wish to. You will make me hate you, one day, Alexis, and then—I will kill you."