“Ah, you cannot mean it, you cannot,” she gasped, breathing convulsively.
He took her hands in both his own, and drew her towards him very gently, looking into her eyes with such intensity that she felt he was reading her very soul.
Her colour came and went with each breath.
She was powerless to resist the strong magnetic influence felt by all who knew Francis Keene.
“Yes, I mean it. I offer you the post for life if you will accept it. I want you to play Beatrice to my Benedict for all time. I have loved you from the time of our first meeting. Am I too presumptuous, or do you care a little for me? When I saw my roses in your breast, when you yielded to my caress that was inevitable then, I fancied that my touch had power to thrill you. Muriel—”
Her eyes sank beneath his, and he held her close to his heart, stooping until his lips rested on hers.
For a moment she rested so, then, with a sudden shudder, she drew herself away.
“You do not know who I am,” she whispered hoarsely. “My mother—was—guilty of a great sin.”
“Do not tell me, my child,” he interrupted. “I love you. Whoever or whatever were your people and their doings is nothing to me.”
“I can never marry,” she said, clasping her hands to her heart, and speaking with passionate strength, “for if ever I meet a man named Philip Ainslie I will kill him. He merits death. If he has any descendants I will tell them of their father’s iniquity.”