"It is all self. We will have the plainest possible understanding. If there be any manhood in you, it shall be shamed. You shall have it in plain words. You quite understand that if ever I should marry you, it would be because by threats you had compelled me to do so; that I should hate and detest you if I became your wife even more than I hate and detest you now. As the days passed on, my loathing would become greater, so that no friendly word would ever pass between us, and I should consider you simply as a tyrant who bound me in chains. You understand all this?"
"I will risk it," he replied. "I should not despair of regaining your love in time."
The face she turned to him was pallid in its despair.
"You never would regain it," she said, calmly. "Yet there is one way in which even now you might gain my liking, my esteem, my sincere friendship."
His face kindled at the words.
"How, Dora? Tell me how!" he cried, eagerly.
"By saying to me: 'You are free. I took advantage of your youth and innocence; I am sorry for it. You are free! Forgive me the wrong that has been done, and let us friends.' If you would do that, Lord Vivianne, even now I should like you with a warm, true liking."
He was silent for a few minutes; her appeal had touched him greatly. Looking at him, she saw that his face had softened. Impulsively she laid a warm, soft hand on his.
"I never thought to use words of persuasion to you," she said. "I never thought to plead or to pray to you, but I do so now: be kind to me, and let me go free."
He was tempted for one minute; but that warm, soft hand crept like fire through his veins, his pulses thrilled, his heart beat.