And not to do so, leave none else a place.
“I love not you!” she cried, with look so changed,
My weight of shame had sunk me through the floor.
But, driven to words, like one some startle shocks,
I stammer’d “Elbert!”—and stood shock’d in truth;
For had I wrench’d it from her bodily,
Scarce redder had her flushing brow repell’d
My wresting rudely such a secret thence.
At one bound then my honor had return’d.
A bandit had I been, to force the spring