“Then why won’t you believe still more, dear Kate? Why won’t you believe that I am the most sincere and devoted lover ever woman had? That I have been taught, from my youth up, to look upon you as my future wife? That all my associations of home and happiness have centred around you? Oh! Kate,” he cried, as she withdrew her hand and shook her head sadly, “have pity on me. Don’t let your heart be estranged from your own blood and kin, merely because a stranger has done that which I would have died a thousand times to do.”
Kate shook her head again mournfully. “It is not that,” she faltered.
“Then what is it? I implore you to tell me. By the memory of our fathers, who loved each other so well, what is it that makes you cold to me, and to me only?”
Kate had been struggling for composure to reply. Deeply moved, she said—
“Rise, Charles. This is no attitude for you to assume, nor for me to allow.”
Her manner was firm, though gentle, and Aylesford rose and stood before her.
“I cannot listen to such language,” she began. “I must be truthful, even if I speak words that may seem harsh; and I do not love you, Charles—”
He clasped his forehead violently with both hands.
“Yet what have I done,” he cried, after a moment, like one beside himself, “to win this hatred? Oh! never man loved as I love you, Kate.”
“I do not hate you, Charles,” was Kate’s mild reply. “You are my cousin, and the last male representative of our family, and therefore have a double claim on me. I like you as a relative, though I see much,” she added, hesitatingly, “to condemn. But to be your wife is impossible. It would bring happiness to neither of us. And knowing that it would not bring happiness,” she added, in a firmer tone, “it would be a sin in us to contract it. Otherwise, perhaps,” and here her voice trembled, “I might have ratified the wishes of our parents; which, but for this incompatibility between us, I should feel bound to obey.”