But the next moment his heart said no, and his pulses increased their beat. No accidental resemblance could have produced that effect upon him. He knew that there was something which he could not explain—a strange vitality or occult force which bound him to her, and, though his eyes might have erred, his nature could have made no such blunder, and he was eager to continue the attack now the opportunity was there.
“Mistaken?” he said in a low, impassioned tone; “how could I be mistaken? From the first moment you came to me, your looks, the tones of your voice in your appeal to me for help, awoke something which till then had slumbered within me. I had lived in ignorance of the reality of such a passion, one which has gone on growing like a torrent ever since. It has swept all before it since the hour I knew that I had found my fate.”
“My good sir,” she said firmly and gently; “indeed you are taking me for someone else.”
He smiled as he gazed at her intently.
“For whom?” he said.
“I cannot say; some friend. It is an accidental resemblance, and once more—I appeal to you as a gentleman to cease this persecution.”
He shook his head sadly.
“Accidental resemblance? No. There is but one Marion on earth. No woman ever resembled you in any way. This is impossible. Marion, be merciful. After the night on which I saw you last, what must you think of me? Of what manner of man could I be if, after striving so hard to gain an interview like this, I could let you throw me over in so cruel a way? Marion, for pity’s sake. There must be stronger reasons than I already know of to make you act like this.”
She glanced round wildly for a moment or two, as if in dread that they were being observed and his words were taking the attention of the people around, then up at the coachman, but he sat erect and stolid, too well schooled in his duties to have a thought or eyes for anything but the beautiful pair of horses under his charge. Then, as she realised the fact that they were perfectly unobserved by the busy throng around, she recovered her passing composure, and said quite calmly, and with a suggestion of pity in her tone for one who seemed to her to be suffering from some slight mental aberration—
“Can you not see that you are mistaken?”