“I loved you, and I love you still. Do not go, I beg, I implore you. As the proof of how I love you, I declare that I know all that you have heard of me, all that you have said of me,—every harsh and cruel word. Ay, Alice, I have read them as your hand traced them, and through all, I love you.”
“I will not stoop to ask how, sir; but I will say that the avowal has not raised you in my estimation.”
“If I have not your love, I will never ask for your esteem; I wanted your affection as a man wants that which would make his life a reality. I could have worked for you; I could have braved scores of things I have ever shrunk from; and I had a right to it.”
“A right!—what right?”
“The right of him who loved as I did, and was as ready to prove his love. The man who has done what I have is no adventurer, though that fair hand wrote him one. Remember that, madam; and remember that you are in a land where men accept no such slights as this you would pass upon me.” His eyes glared with passion as he spoke, and his dark cheeks grew purple. “You are not without those who must answer for your levity.”
“Now, sir, I leave you,” said she, rising.
“Not yet. You shall hear me out. I know why you have treated me thus falsely. I am aware who is my rival.”
“Let me pass, sir.”
He placed his back to the door, and folded his arms on his breast; but though he made an immense effort to seem calm, his lip shook as he spoke. “You shall hear me out. I tell you, I know my rival, and I am ready and prepared to stake my pretensions against his.”
“Go on, sir, go on; very little more in this strain will efface any memory I preserved of what you first appeared to me.”