“I would have saved you this! Why, in the name of all that is manly, delicate, honorable!—why have you in defiance of all opposition, ventured this?”
“Because I love you, Marguerite. Because I love you for time and for eternity with a love that must speak or slay.”
“Ungenerous! unjust!”
“Be it so, Marguerite. I do not ask you to forgive me, for that must presuppose repentance, and I do not repent standing here, Miss De Lancie.”
“Still I must ask you, sir,” said Marguerite, who was gradually recovering the full measure of her natural dignity and self-possession, “what feature in all my conduct that has come under your observation has given you the courage to obtrude upon me a presence and a suit that you must know to be unwelcome and repulsive?”
“Shall I tell you? I will, with the truthfulness of spirit answering to spirit. I come because, despite all your apparent hauteur, disdain, coldness, such a love as this which burns within my heart for you, bears within itself the evidence of reciprocity,” replied Philip Helmstedt, laying his hand upon his heart, and atoning by a profound reverence for the presumption of his words. “And I appeal to your own soul, Marguerite De Lancie, for the indorsement of my avowal.”
“You are mad!” said Marguerite, trembling.
“No—not mad, lady, because loving you as never man loved woman yet, I also feel and know, with the deepest respect be it said, that I do not love in vain,” he replied, sinking for an instant upon his knee, and bowing deeply over her hand that he pressed to his lips.
“In vain! in vain! you do! you do!” she exclaimed, almost distractedly, while trembling more than ever.
“Marguerite,” he said, rising, yet retaining his hold upon her hand, “it may be that I love in vain, but I do not love alone. This hand that I clasp within my own throbs like a palpitating heart. I read, on your brow, in your eyes, in your trembling lip and heaving bosom, that my great love is not lost; that it is returned; that you are mine, as I am yours. Marguerite De Lancie, by a claim rooted in the deepest nature, you are my wife for time and for eternity!”