"I am sorry," he said, "you should think unpleasant things of me. But is there need?"
The coldness of his tone struck a horrible chill to her heart. But it was not a moment for despair, rather for a marshalling of all her forces. She redoubled her efforts; fell on her knees by his side, and cried:
"You are cruel! I am kneeling to you, asking you to forgive me, and you won't! I knelt to you once before—here on this spot—and you were cruel to me then——"
"Ah, yes!"
He interrupted her; the memory of his brutality then—he called it so—returned to him; his words came hurriedly:
"For that I need your forgiveness; I ought to abjectly apologise. What I did, said, then was wholly under a misapprehension——"
She seized on that: it gave her a chance. Moreover, it was now or never—so she thought. Metaphorically she set her teeth and said—Now. Actually she whispered:
"Isn't it possible perhaps, that you may be under a misapprehension now?"
She boldly raised her head and looked him straight in the face as she spoke. Tears had not in the least, strange to say, disfigured hers; her grief had not been that kind! She continued:
"Don't do as you did then; don't push me away from you!"