"Wait," she said a minute later, unclasping his arms from her neck, "wait a moment, and let me think."
"No, no, no," he cried, "you must not think; you must not wait to think. Come with me now. Come away from this place. Come with me, darling, where we can live forgotten and unknown."
She did not seem to hear him. She had walked towards the window, and was gazing out into the garden, where, round the shrubs and flowers, the twilight was quickly gathering. She stood there motionless for many minutes, it seemed to him, then she turned and faced him. Round the lips there was a look of great and stern resolve, though the eyes were softened by unshed tears.
"No," she said, "I have changed my mind. I will not--I will never go with you! My resolution must not--cannot--be altered. Dear Dick, I implore you to go, to leave me now, for I will not come between your wife and you. I have promised her."
"My wife!--my wife!--why drag in my wife again?" he cried. "What is she to you? What is she to me? I tell you, Pearl, she is nothing to me, and I am less than nothing to her. She goes her way and I go mine. She has her friends, I have mine. She is my wife only in name. And you compare this--this arrangement to the perfect love that you and I have for each other,--to the devotion of years? You will let this wretched, this unnatural state of things stand between us? No, you shall not do so, Pearl! God knows I am accustomed enough to your--to women's moods. But a minute ago you said you would come with me, you were even willing to sacrifice your salvation for my sake. Why change now? You shall not change now. You are bound to me by your flight--by your word, by our love, by--by--everything, and, by God! you shall come."
And he caught her once more in his arms, kissing her hands and face.
She wrenched herself free.
"Dick," she said, with eyes large with fear, and warding him off with her hands, "listen to me, I pray you. You are wrong about your wife, totally, entirely wrong. You may not love her, but she loves you, deeply, truly. Indeed she does. She wept to-day when she mentioned your name. I promised her, recklessly perhaps, that I would be her friend. It was a foolish, a rash promise, I know, but while I have breath in my body I intend to keep it. So go back to her, Dick. She loves you. Oh, Dick, in the old days you always listened to me. You always did what I desired. Once more I beg, I implore you to do so now, and to leave me."
"But to-day is not yesterday, and I will listen no longer. You have fooled me too often, Pearl. You are free now, and you shall be mine for ever and ever. Do you hear? For ever and ever," and once again he was going towards her with outstretched arms, when he stopped abruptly in his approach.
The varied trials and excitements of the day had resulted in one termination, and that a natural one. Pearl's overstrained nerves at length gave way. With a cry like a wounded animal she threw herself on the sofa, her head buried in the cushions, sobbing in all the abandonment of grief and fear, while Lord Martinworth,--standing perfectly still,--watched her.