The lustrous eyes looked into his with a gaze as pure as an infant's, as earnest as a sibyl's, and the gentle hand lay motionless upon his arm.
"How you bade me farewell!" he repeated in a hoarse voice. "What do you mean? Are you sending me from you?"
"Yes," she answered; "I am sending you from me. We have met once too often, and we must meet no more. You say you love me;" she shrunk and shivered again,--"and--and I believe you. Therefore you will obey me."
"No," he said resolutely; "I will not obey you! I will see you,--I must. What is there in my love to frighten or to harm you? I ask for nothing which even your scrupulous conscience might hesitate to give; I seek no change in the relation that has subsisted between us for some time now."
"Dreams, dreams," she said, sadly; "unworthy of your sense,--unworthy of your knowledge of the world. Nothing can ever replace us on our old footing. The words you have spoken to me can never be unsaid. They are words I never ought to have heard--and--" In a moment her firmness deserted her, her voice failed; she sank into a chair, and burst into passionate tears.
"You would not have them unsaid!" he cried; "tell me that you would not! Tell me that the coldness and the calm which those streaming tears deny are not true, are not real! Tell me that I am something in your life,--that I might have been more! Dearest, I reverence as much as I love you; but give me that one gleam of comfort. It cannot make your heavenly rectitude and purity poorer, while to me it will be boundless riches. Tell me that you could love me if you would; tell me that the sacred barrier of your conscience is the only one between us! I swear I will submit to that! I will not try to shake or to remove it. Nay, more, I will leave you,--if indeed you persist in commanding my absence,--if only you will tell me that under other circumstances you would have loved me. Tell me this! I ask a great, a priceless boon; but I do ask it. Dearest, will you not answer me?" Her agitation, her tears, had reassured him, had broken the spell which her calmness had imposed. The hope that had come to him once or twice during their interview came again now, and stayed.
There was no sound for a while but that of her low rapid sobs. The clocks upon the mantelpieces in the suite of rooms ticked loudly, and their irritating metallic voices mingled strangely with the rushing pulses of Alsager's frame, as he leant over her,--one arm round the back of her chair, the other hand upon its velvet arm. His face was bent above her drooping head; his thick moustache almost touched the waved ridges of her scented hair. He implored her to speak to him; he poured out protestation and entreaty with all the ardour of his strong and fiery nature, with all the eloquence which slumbered in him, unsuspected even by himself. Little by little she ceased to weep, and at length she allowed him to see her face. Again he renewed his entreaties, and she answered him.
"You try me too far, and I am weak. Yes, I would love you, if I might!"
"Then you do love me!" he exclaimed. "You and I are no dreaming boy and girl, no Knight and Dame of old romance, but man and woman; and we know that these shades of difference are merest imagination. We love each other, and we know it. We love each other, and the acknowledgment makes the truth no truer. I am ungenerous, you would say; I am breaking the promise I have just made. Yes, I am; but I love you--and you love me!" He had dropped on one knee beside her chair now, and as he spoke he caught her hand in his. Without any sign of anger or prudery, she withdrew her hand quietly, but resolutely, and signed to him to rise and be seated. He obeyed her; but exultation shone out from every line and feature of his face.
"You are ungenerous," she said,--"very ungenerous, and very cruel; but I will not the less be true in these the last words I shall say to you. If I have dreamed of a life other than mine, of love well bestowed and faithfully returned, it was only in the most passing, transient visions. My lot is cast; my mind is made up; my heart is fixed. I linger here for a few moments longer because they are the last I shall ever pass alone with you. Do not interrupt me, or I terminate this interview on the instant. This subject must never be renewed,--indeed it never can be; for you know my resolution, and I know you will respect it. The past remains with us; but the future has no common history for you and me. When I have ceased speaking, and that door has closed behind you, you must remember me, if you do not see me, and regard me if you do, as a woman wholly devoted to her wifely duty, of whom to think otherwise is to do a deadly wrong."