“Dear W-Will, I am serious, so far as that I cannot love you.”
“Perhaps there is some one else?” he said, a sudden light breaking upon him.
“No; I can give you my word I have never even thought of marrying some one else.”
“Then you are trifling with me,” he said to her fiercely. “Can you not see that I love you with all my heart and soul; that it is a matter of life and death; that I could kill the man who should come between us?” and then he struck his fist on the marble table of the belvedere. “There must be some one trifling with your feelings.”
“Indeed there is not, W-Will,” pleaded Rusidda, a little scared by his vehemence.
“I am sorry,” he said, kissing her tenderly; “but oh, Rusidda, you do not know how your refusal maddens me—how it dries my life-blood!”
“Oh, W-Will!” she said, with a sad smile, while surveying the sinewy figure, the bronzed face, the clear proud eyes.
“Don’t mock me, little one.”
“I mock you!” she said, her arms round him in an instant: “have I not told you I pray the good Santa Rosalia, night and morning, to change my heart towards you?”
“Will you swear not to love any one better than me?” he added desperately.