"Do not speak to me. Let me speak, for I must speak, or die! It is not only that I do not love this viscount, but, oh, Bee!" she wailed in the prolonged tones of unutterable woe, "I love another! I love Ishmael!"
There was a sudden movement and a fall.
"You push me from you! Oh, cruel friend! Let me lay my head upon your lap again, Bee, and sob out all this anguish here. I must, or my heart will burst. I love Ishmael! His love is the heaven of heavens from which Ambition has cast me down. I love Ishmael! Oh, how much, my reason, utterly overthrown, may some time betray to the world! This love fills my soul. Oh, more than that, it is greater than my soul; it goes beyond it, into infinitude! There is light, warmth, and life where Ishmael is; darkness, coldness, and death where he is not! To meet his eyes,—those beautiful, dark, luminous eyes, that seem like inlets to some perfect inner world of wisdom, love, and pure joy; or to lay my hand in his, and feel that soft, strong, elastic hand close upon mine,—gives me a moment of such measureless content, such perfect assurance of peace, that for the time I forget all the sin and horror that envelopes and curses my life. But to be his beloved wife—oh, Bee! I cannot imagine in the life of heaven a diviner happiness!"
A low, half-suppressed cry from Bee. And Claudia continued:
"It is a love that all which is best in my nature approves. For oh, who is like Ishmael? Who so wise, so good, so useful? Morally, intellectually, and physically beautiful! an Apollo! more than that, a Christian gentleman! He is human, and yet he appears to me to be perfectly faultless."
There was a pause and a low sound of weeping, broken at last by Claudia, who rustled up to her feet, saying:
"There, it is past!"
"Claudia," said Bee solemnly, "you must not let this marriage go on; to do so would be to commit the deadliest sin!"
"I have determined to commit it, then, Bee."
"Claudia, if I saw you on the brink of endless woe, would I not be justified in trying to pluck you back? Oh, Claudia, dear cousin, pause, reflect—"