“Oh, hush!” she whispered. “Believe me, that is impossible. Now leave me, pray.”
“Nothing is impossible to a man who loves as I love you,” he whispered.
“No, no; once more, I tell you that we must never meet again.”
“And I tell you,” he whispered back, “that you are part of my life, and that while my heart beats I will never give you up. Marion, we must meet again sooner or later; I live for nothing else. Your hand one moment.”
“No, no!” she moaned.
“Your hand—life of my life,” he whispered softly; and as she gazed at him wildly, her hand, as if drawn by the magnetism of his nature, glided slowly into his, and was clasped in his nervous grasp.
“I am going to wait.”
“No,” she said more firmly. “This for the last time. They would kill me—they would kill you.”
“No,” he said. “An hour ago I would have welcomed death; now life opens before me in its fullest sunshine of joy. They shall not kill you; they shall not kill me, for I know you love me and have suffered, and it has made me strong.”
“Impossible, impossible,” she whispered, with her eyes fixed upon his.