"Since you force me to speak out, and are determined to have an answer from me, listen to it. I do not love you, and—forgive me if my words seem harsh; better a cold truth than a sweet falsehood—it is better that you should know now, once and for all, I could never love you—never, never, NEVER!"
There could be no mistaking the meaning of those cold, deliberate words. It pained her to say them, and I believe she would have burst into a flood of tears; but she repressed her emotion, lest it should encourage Angelo to a more earnest persistency of his suit.
The effect of her refusal on the artist was singular in the extreme. At first he trembled, in every limb, and I could distinctly see drops of perspiration glistening on his brow. Then, as he realised all the bitterness of his position, and that the lovely woman before him was lost to him forever and ever, and that if they were to live a thousand years on the earth she would still be as cold to him as she was at that moment, he lifted his arms with a slow motion and extended them towards her, and for some moments he maintained this position, petrified to rigidity, staring at her with ghastly look and glassy eye. His attitude was the very apotheosis of despair.
I marvelled at his emotion. My own sense of disappointment on hearing Daphne express her determination to remain faithful to George was exquisitely bitter, but, bitter as it was, it was apparently but a tithe of the pain felt by the artist.
Several times he tried to speak, but no words came from his dry lips. It was painful to see him going through the mockery of speaking, yet unable to produce a sound. It was as if the dead, touched by some galvanic apparatus, were trying to assume the mechanism of life, and when at last he did speak his strange hollow voice aided the illusion.
"Miss Leslie, you surely cannot—cannot mean that!"
"Indeed I do," was the cold reply.
Scarcely able to keep his feet, the artist moved backward till he touched the trunk of a tree, where he leaned for support. The sight of his misery touched Daphne to the quick, and she cried impulsively:
"O Mr. Vasari, I am sorry for you; but I cannot love you. I cannot forget George. Believe me, it pains me to have to say this. Try to think it is for the best."