"I must!"
Corinna said very low: "I love you. Isn't that enough? Costs me something to say it. Costs me my pride. It would have been more merciful to beat me with a club. I cannot entreat you. I never learned how. But—but I am entreating you. Love me, Evan. Let us begin from now. Let the past be past."
Evan was tempted then. His senses reeled. But something held fast. "I can't!" he said.
She shrank sharply. "It is useless, then," she muttered. "I will not be a repentant sinner!"
"For the sake of our love, Corinna!"
"You do not love me. You want to master me."
He groaned in his helplessness.
Suddenly an ominous peremptory knock on the front door rang through the empty house.
"The police!" gasped Evan.
"Then it's over!" said Corinna, desperately calm.