"I repeat it, I loved you with a passion so terrible, so fierce, so violent, it frightened me! I loved you so, that I would have lost wealth, fortune, position—ah! life itself—for you!"
Her white lips smiled scornfully; that calm, proud, scorn drove him beside himself.
"You have been some time in discovering it," she said.
"That is your mistake," he replied; "do you know, Doris, I swear what I am saying is true. Do you know why I was so gay, so happy, so light of heart on the day you left me? It was because my love had beaten down my pride, and on that very evening I had resolved upon asking you to be my wife."
"I do not believe it," she cried.
"It is true; I swear it on the faith and honor of a gentleman. I swear it on the word of a man."
"I should need a stronger oath than that," she said.
"I swear it then by your own falseness, and by your own deceit; can any oath be stronger than that? On that very evening I had resolved upon asking you to be my wife. I was determined to make our union legal. I loved you so that I could not live without you."
She made no reply for one minute, but looked steadily at him: then she said:
"I do thank Heaven that I have been spared the degradation of becoming your wife."