She remained silent, while a frightful pallor overspread her face.
“Tell me! Oh! tell me, Marguerite, have you ever before loved? Ah, pardon the question and answer it.”
She made a supreme effort, recovered her self-possession and replied:
“No, not as you understand it.”
“How?—not as I understand it? Ah! forgive me again, but your words increase my suffering.”
“Oh! I have loved Nellie as a sister, her father and mother as parents, some acquaintances as friends, that is all.”
She was answering these close questions! she was yielding to the fascination. Amid all her agony of conflicting emotions she was yielding.
“Marguerite! Marguerite! And this is true! You have never loved before!”
“It is true—yet what of that? for I know not even why I admit this! Oh! leave me, I am not myself. Hope nothing from what I have told you. I can never, never be your wife!” exclaimed Marguerite, with the half-suppressed and wild affright of one yielding to a terrible spell.
“But one word more. Is your hand free also, dearest Marguerite?”