Passionately he stretched out his arms and drew the girl forward. She swayed toward him and for an instant he held her against his madly beating heart. “I love you!” he cried. “I love you! I love you!”
It was for an instant only, for, with a strength of which he had not thought her capable, the girl tore herself free.
“For shame!” she gasped. “For shame!”
Caruth made no attempt to move.
“Why ‘for shame’?” he questioned. “I love you. I have loved you from the first moment I saw you. Within an hour from that first moment I lied for you! I risked the electric chair for you! I did it willingly, gladly, without being asked. I would do it again! I love you! Miss Fitzhugh—Marie—will you be my wife?”
A curious expression came into the girl’s face. “What!” she demanded incredulously. “You would marry me? Me! The woman who came to your rooms at midnight? The woman whom you suspected of murder? The adventuress who plots for gold? You would marry me?”
“You and none other. Is it so strange? Many men must have loved you! Every one who saw you must have loved you.”
“But not under such circumstances as these. Mr. Caruth, all my life I shall be grateful to you. As long as I live, I shall remember your words. They will console me when my dark hour comes, as come it must for each of our Brotherhood. But I cannot accept. I am pledged to a cause which I cannot desert. No, Mr. Caruth! Go back to your safe and harmless American life and forget me. It would be ill requital for your kindness to draw you further into my fated existence.”
Caruth stretched out his hand and took hers. She did not resist, but her fingers lay cold in his and she shook her head slowly, smiling wanly. “No,” she breathed. “No.”
Caruth’s grasp did not slacken. “Why not?” he questioned. “This matter of the Orkney will not last forever. When it is over, you will have earned your freedom; you will have done a great work for your country. Then——”