“‘Impossible,’ Gloria?” he repeated, as his happy face gloomed and darkened.
“Yes, ‘impossible,’ because insane, profane, sacrilegious! Oh, I cannot bear to think of it! Do not compel me to think of it—even negatively—after this!”
“Gloria!” he cried, in a tone of pain and reproach.
“Hear me out, dear Marcel! for indeed I mean to reassure you! Listen, then! Since you love me so well that you would even marry me—ugh!—rather than lose me, hear me promise, Marcel, that you shall never lose me. I will never, never, never leave you to marry any one at all! I will stay with you and be your own faithful, affectionate, devoted niece, loving you as if I were your daughter—loving and serving you as my dear uncle, and even as if you were my own father! Now, Marcel, I promise to do this on the word of a de la Vera, whose very name is Truth! if only you would give up this mad and sacrilegious idea of me, which, of course, I know you will readily do.”
“And is this your plan for ‘harmonizing our lives’ and making me happy?” he groaned, with such a look of anguish that Gloria could not endure it. With a low cry of pain she averted her face.
“But, child, I will not torture you, as I see I am doing now. Time and patience—time and patience work wonders. I must wait and hope—wait and hope,” he breathed, with the reiteration of misery.
She arose and stood behind him, and with her hand on the back of his chair, murmured:
“Marcel, I am not angry, but I am very, very unhappy. I must go now and stay by myself a little while.”
“Go, then, Gloria! Go!” he moaned, without turning to look at her.
Gloria fled to her own room; but even there the agonized face she had left behind followed her, haunted her, and tormented her.