"You are mine, Hermione, mine always and forever! You are the one woman I long for—the wife nature intended for me! You are mine, Hermione!"
Very softly she answered, her eyes closed:
"I felt at the first there was a gulf dividing us—and now—this gulf is wider—so wide it can never be crossed by either of us. Your world is not my world, after all—you are Geoffrey Ravenslee and I am only—what I am. Newport and Fifth Avenue are a long way from Hell's Kitchen and Tenth Avenue, and they can never—never come together. And I—am a thief's sister, so please, please loose me—oh, have mercy and—let me go."
His arms fell from her and, shivering, she sank beside the table, and the pale agony of her face smote him.
"But you love me, Hermione?" he pleaded.
"If I had only known," she sighed, "I might not have learned to love you—quite so much! If I had only known!" Her voice was soft and low, her blue eyes wide and tearless, and because of this, he trembled.
"Hermione," said he gently, "all this week I have been planning for you and Arthur. I have been dreaming of our life together, yours and mine, a life so big, so wonderful, so full of happiness that I trembled, sometimes, dreading it was only a dream. Dear, the gates of our paradise are open; will you shut me out? Must I go back to my loneliness?"
"I shall be lonely, too!" she murmured brokenly. "But better, oh, far better loneliness than that some day—" she paused, her lips quivering.
"Some day, Hermione?"
"You should find that you had married not only a scrubwoman but—the sister of a—thief!" Suddenly she sprang to her feet, her clinging arms held him to her bosom and, drawing down his head, she pressed her mouth to his; holding him thus, she spoke, her voice low and quick and passionate: