“Oh yes, we could wait,” sighed Clotilde. “But no—no—no, it is madness! I ought not to talk like this. I’ve been very weak and foolish, and I don’t know what you must think of me.”
“Think of you!” he whispered; “that you are all that is beautiful and innocent and good, and that I love you with all my heart.”
“But I’m not good,” faltered Clotilde; “I’m very wicked indeed, and I don’t know what will become of me; I don’t, really.”
“Become the woman who will share my fate—the woman I shall make my idol. Clotilde, I never saw one I could sincerely say such things to till we met, and at one bound my heart seemed to go out to meet you. Tell me, my darling, that nothing shall separate us now.”
“Oh, don’t, pray don’t speak to me like that,” sighed Clotilde. “You don’t know—you can’t know. What shall I do?”
“My dear girl, tell me,” he whispered, as he gazed in her wild eyes.
“Oh, no, no!” she sobbed.
“Not give your confidence to one who loves you as I do?”
“I dare not tell you—yes, I will,” she cried piteously. “What shall I do? My aunts say that I must marry Mr Elbraham.”
“Then Millet was right,” cried Glen excitedly. “But no, no, my darling, it cannot—it shall not be. Only tell me you love me—that I may care for you—guard you—defend you, and no aunts or Elbrahams in the world shall separate us.”