"Yes, I think you do."
"Then say yes."
"I can't—it is too late."
"There's another chap?"
She nodded.
"I thought as much. Do you care for him?"
She did not answer.
He drew her closer to him; she did not resist; he could see that she was weeping. He kissed her on her neck first, and then on her face; and he continued to ask her if she loved the other chap. At last she signified that she did not.
"Then say yes." She murmured that she could not. "You can, you can, you can." He kissed her, all the while reiterating, "You can, you can, you can," until it became a sort of parrot cry. Several minutes elapsed, and the candle began to splutter in its socket. She said—
"Let me go; let me light the gas."