Instinctively his hand went out to her as she passed, and clutched the crumpled wedding dress which seemed to wrap her in, now like a shroud. She tried to disengage her gown, but as he held it tight she desisted, standing there cold and impassive, a woman turned to ice.
"Rose Marie!" he whispered, "my own little snowdrop, will you be so unyielding now? Awhile ago do you remember, you yielded to the sweetness of a first kiss?"
"And yet you lied to me," she said slowly, tonelessly, the while her eyes sought the distant horizon far away, where astride on the cold grey mists unreached by the tender light of the moon, her dreams of happiness were fleeting quickly away.
He drew himself up and caught her to him with a masterful gesture of possession. He felt her body rigid and impassive at his touch, stiffening in a backward motion away from him behind that massive stone wall of awful finality which had so mercilessly risen between her and him. He felt that he was losing her, that she was slipping away from him—slipping—up, up to some cold and unresponsive heaven, peopled with stern angels, whose great white wings would soon enclose her and hide her from him forever. He felt that he was losing her, not with that same bitter-sweet sense of sadness as he did just now when the savour of her exquisite lips still clung to his own, and she retreated out of his sight like a perfect vision of beauty.
Now an almost savage longing was in him not to let her go, to keep her to him at any cost, any sacrifice, even that of his own self-control. There was enough power in his own ardent love for her so to bind her to him that she could never, never leave him.
"My beautiful crimson rose," he murmured, drawing her closer, closer, even while he felt that with her whole gentle strength she opposed an icy calm to the warm glow of his passion, "turn your dear eyes to me, just for one brief moment. Oh! think, think of the past few days when first our hearts, our souls, our entire beings met in perfect accord. Look at me, my dear, sweet soul, am I not the man to whom you have listened so oft, sitting at your harpsichord, the while he whispered to you the first words of love? Look, look, my dear, mine eyes, are they not the same?—my lips have they not met yours in one sublime, unforgettable kiss? You were a child, ere your soul met mine—now you are a woman, 'tis I who applied the magic fire to your heart, 'tis I who kindled the flame of your pure love; you are no longer a child now, Rose Marie, you are an exquisitely beautiful woman, and I love you with every fibre of my body, with every aspiration of my soul—"
"And yet you lied to me."
"And would lie again, would sin again a thousand times, since my sin gave you to me. Sweetheart, if I have sinned, yet have I expiated already—one cold look from your dear eyes hath caused me more acute agony than the damned can ever suffer in Hell. My love—my love—do you understand what you mean to me? Have you realised the exquisite gift—your perfect womanhood—which you would snatch from me? I was a wastrel, a thief, a miserable degraded wretch—awhile ago when I held you in my arms I was king of all the world. By my sin I won you! Great God, then is not my sin the greatest, grandest and most glorious deed ever accomplished by man—in order to gain a heaven?"
But with all his ardour, all his savage strength of will and of purpose, Michael was but bruising his heart against a solid stone wall. Perhaps if Rose Marie had been a little older, a little more sophisticated, a little more wearied in the ways of men, she might have yielded to the love of the man, and closed her eyes to the deeds of the sinner. Whatever else he had done, she would easily have forgiven—nay! she would never have judged—but it was the betrayal of her trust which turned her heart to stone. Of course she had not had time as yet to think. In the letter which he had given her she had read the awful account of that transaction wherein she appeared as a mere chattel tossed from one hand to another, paid for with money like a bale of goods.