‘Be quiet, I tell you; let me alone! If I’ve a fancy, I’ll sleep in the vestibule, or anywhere I choose. Now, Magdalen,’—he seized her hands in a grasp that hurt them,—‘swear that you will not go back from what you have said to-night’
‘I swear I will not, Otho.’
‘And that when the time comes—we shall both know when it does—you’ll marry me, and follow me, as truly as I’ll go on loving you.’
‘Yes, I swear I will.’
‘And that whatever happens, you are mine—you don’t cut yourself adrift from me as you did from Michael Langstroth.’
‘There is no need for me to swear that, for I could not, if I would.’
‘All right! give me a kiss, and let me get home.’
Magdalen put her two hands on his shoulders, and said—
‘I have sworn a good many things to you; I want you to swear nothing to me; but remember this, whatever wrong you do me, directly or indirectly, from this time forward, you do to your wife, for you are mine now, as much as I am yours. Good night!’
She kissed him on his mouth, and was turning away. Otho suddenly put his arm about her neck, laid his head for a moment on her breast, and said in a rough, broken voice—