“I see how it is, sir! You do not love me; you are faithless; you seek an excuse to break with me, by putting our union upon conditions impossible for me to comply with. You need not have taken such a crooked path to a plain end, sir; you needed only to have frankly named your wish, to have had your plighted troth restored. You are free, sir——to unite yourself with one of the favoured race, the objects of your manifest preference, if you please”——
This last, most insulting clause was cast at him with a glance of insufferable scorn, as she turned to leave the room.
His brow crimsoned with the sudden smite of shame, and—
“This from you, India!” he exclaimed.
She was looking at him still; but the scorn and anger slowly passed from her face, as he rose and advanced towards her, saying—
“But you are excited; I will not lay your bitter words to heart, nor suffer you to leave me in anger. Dearest India!”
She had already regretted her sharp words; love and anger were balanced in her bosom so evenly, that it took but a trifle to disturb the equilibrium; and now his forbearance and his kind words completely upset the scale, and love ascended. Turning to him once more, and throwing herself in his open arms, she burst into tears, and said—
“Dearest Mark, only give up this mad, mad project, and I am all yours. Oh, you know I am, any way; for even now the separation that would pain you, would kill or madden me! But, oh! you know I cannot endure the hardships you would prepare for me; they would be equally fatal. Give it up, Mark! Dear Mark, give it up, for my sake, for your dear mother’s sake, for all our sakes! Stay with us! do not divide us, and break our hearts, by leaving us! We all love you so! you know we do! We would do anything in the world for you, if you would stay with us! And I only grow angry and lose my senses, and utter mad words, when you talk of leaving us! Don’t go, Mark! Dearest Mark, don’t leave us.”
And so she pleaded, hiding her tears and blushes on his shoulder, and clasping, and pressing, and kissing his neck and cheek. The pleadings of young beauty to young love, most powerful, most painful to resist, yet they were resisted, mournfully, but calmly and firmly, resisted.
She raised her head from his shoulder.