“I know it, Elsie; but you would not give a loving word to save me. You would send me out to my death without compunction—without a care; and yet you know how I have loved you.”
“You—you loved me; and yet stand and see my heart torn—see me suffer like this?” cried Miss Ross, and there was something half-wild in her looks as she spoke.
“Love you!” he cried; “yes, you know how I have loved you—”
His voice sank here; but he was talking in her ear excitedly, saying words that made her shrink from him up to the wall, and look at him as if he were some object of the greatest disgust.
“You can choose,” he said bitterly, as he saw her action; and he turned away from her.
The next moment she was bending down before him, holding up her hands as if in prayer.
“Promise me,” he said, “and I will do it.”
“Oh, some other way—some other way!” she cried piteously, her face all drawn the while.
“As you will,” he said coldly.
“But think—oh, think! You cannot expect it of me. Have mercy! Oh, what am I saying?”