"Yes. But—but—how can I meet you? I have almost given my word to Aunt Priscilla to do nothing—clandestine—or that; and how shall I break it? You are always tempting me, and"—a soft glance stealing to him from beneath her lashes—"I should like to see you, of course, but so much duty I owe to her."
"Your first duty is to your husband," responds he, gravely.
She turns to him with startled eyes.
"Who is that?" she asks.
"I am," boldly; "or at least I soon shall be: it is all the same."
"How sure you are of me!" she says, with just the faintest touch of offence in her tone that quickens his pulses to fever-heat.
"Sure!" he says, with a melancholy raised by passion into something that is almost vehemence. "Was I ever so unsure of anything, I wonder? There is so little certainty connected with you in my mind that half my days are consumed by doubts that render me miserable! Yet I put my trust in you. Upon your sweetness I build my hope. I feel you would not willingly condemn any one to death, and what could I do but die if you now throw me over? But you won't I think."
"No, no," says Monica, impulsively, tears in her eyes and voice. Tremblingly she yields herself to him, and let him hold her to his heart in a close embrace. "How could you think that of me? Have you forgotten that I kissed you?"
Plainly she lays great stress upon that rash act committed the other night beneath the stars.
"Forget it!" says Desmond, in a tone that leaves nothing to be desired. "You are mine, then, now,—now and forever," he says, presently.