"Let me go!" she cried. "I will call, if you do not!"
"Call all Rome if you will, to see me ask your forgiveness. Consuelo—do not be so hard and cruel—if you only knew how I love you, you would be sorry for me, you would see how I hate myself, how I despise myself for all this—"
"You might show a little more feeling," she said, making a final effort to disengage her hand, and then relinquishing the struggle.
Orsino wondered whether he were really in love with her or not. Somehow, the words he sought did not rise to his lips, and he was conscious that his speech was not of the same temperature, so to say, as his actions. There was something in Maria Consuelo's manner which disturbed him disagreeably, like a cold draught blowing unexpectedly through a warm room. Still he held her hand and endeavoured to rise to the occasion.
"Consuelo!" he cried in a beseeching tone. "Do not send me away—see how I am suffering—it is so easy for you to say that you forgive!"
She looked at him a moment, and her eyelids drooped suddenly.
"Will you let me go, if I forgive you?" she asked in a low voice.
"Yes."
"I forgive you then. Well? Do you still hold my hand?"
"Yes."