“Whither are you going?” she panted.
“I am on my way back to England.”
She took a quick step forward.
“You shall not leave me like this! You have made me what I am. Monsieur—monsieur——”
In a moment the storm broke. Once more she was drowned in tears. She threw herself upon him, and her arms about his neck.
“It is love!” she cried. “You are my God and my desire. I have followed you in my heart these long months—oh, how piteously! Do anything with me you will. Disbelieve me, spurn me, stamp on me—only let me love you! These months—oh, these desolate, sick months!”
She clung to him, entreating and caressing, though he muttered “For shame!” and strove to disentangle her fingers. She would not be denied in this first convulsive self-consciousness of her surrender.
“I will give myself the lie: invite the hatred and scorn of the world: swear my soul to damnation by acknowledging myself an impostor, if that will make you merciful and kind—no, not even kind, but to take me with you. I will admit I am vile in all but my love: that you tempted me unwittingly: that you had no thought of being cruel—of being anything but your own gracious self, to whom a foolish maiden’s heart fled crying because it could not help it!”
Catching glimpse in her passion of the stony impassibility of his face, she fell upon her knees, clasping her arms about him and sobbing—
“You must speak—you must speak, or I shall die! You don’t know what binds me to you. Not your love, or your respect or pity: only a little mercy—just enough, one finger held out to save me from falling into the abyss! Look here and here! Am I not white and sweet? I have cherished myself ever since you went and my heart nearly broke. I have thought all day and all night, ‘What bar to his approach can I remove if some day he shall come again?’ And when at last I saw you were returned, I would have given all the vain months of adulation for one glad word of welcome from your lips.”