"Don't deceive yourself," she felt bound to say, "I certainly do not love you if love has any of its generally accepted meanings."
"I am not the general sort of person," said he. "It is not strange that I should arouse extraordinary feelings, is it? Driver"—he had the trap in the roof up and was thrusting through it a slip of paper—"take us to that street and number."
She gasped with a tightening at the heart. "I must return to the hotel at once," she said hurriedly.
He fixed his gaze upon her. "We are going to the preacher's," said he.
"The preacher's?" she murmured, shrinking in terror.
"Grant is waiting for us there"—he glanced at his watch—"or, rather, will be there in about ten minutes. We are a little earlier than I anticipated."
She flushed crimson, paled, felt she would certainly suffocate with rage.
"Before you speak," continued he, "listen to me. You don't want to go back into that torment of doubt in which we've both been hopping about for a month, like a pair of damned souls being used as tennis balls by fiends. Let's settle the business now, and for good and all. Let us have peace—for God's sake, peace! I know you've been miserable. I know I've been on the rack. And it's got to stop. Am I not right?"
She leaned back in her corner of the cab, shut her eyes, said no more—and all but ceased to think. What was there to say? What was there to think? When Fate ceases to tolerate our pleasant delusion of free will, when it openly and firmly seizes us and hurries us along, we do not discuss or comment. We close our minds, relax and submit.
At the parsonage he sprang out, stood by to help her descend, half-dragged her from the cab when she hesitated. He shouted at the driver: "How much do I owe you, friend?"