“You do not know, dear—there: I call you dear,” she whispered, in her sweet, soft, caressing voice. “You are hurting me terribly with your cruel grasp, but it is nothing to the agony you make me suffer by believing I could be so deceitful and base.”
He laughed mockingly again, and she drew in her breath with a low sigh, as a wave of hot indignation mastered her once more, and closed her lips.
But love prevailed once more. She stopped, and tried to fling herself upon his breast, clinging wildly to him with the arm that was free.
“No, no; Clive, my own love, my hero, I would rather that you killed me than believed all this.”
He repulsed her with a cry of disgust, and again there was the low sighing sound of her breath, but she went on again—
“I forgive you, dear,” she said hurriedly. “You are my own; I am yours. I gave myself heart and soul to you, Clive, and you shall hear me.”
He tried to drag her onward along the path, but she would not stir, and nothing but the most cruel violence would have moved her then, as she went on.
“Something tries to make me say ‘Go on in your disbelief, for you are cruel, and do not deserve my love!’ but I must, I will speak. Kill me, then, if you will not believe. It would be so easy. There,” she cried; and she took a step before him right to the edge of the path where the precipice went perpendicularly down to the rough stones among which the river gurgled three hundred feet below.
He made a snatch to drag her back, but she resisted him and stood firm.
“I was sitting at home—alone,” she said hurriedly, “when the man brought your message.”