She drank the bovril and returned him the empty cup.
"Thank you. How good you are!" she said.
"Who would not be good to you?" he replied.
She did not answer; she was looking far away. He doubted if she heard him. The utter calm, the quietness of her attitude, impressed while it maddened him. His passion rose in a great tide. He suddenly took her hand.
"Don't you know?" he said—"don't you know?"
"Don't I know what, Major Strause? I don't understand," she said, and she gave him a bewildered glance.
"O Mollie!" he cried, "don't you know what I think of you? Don't you know that there is not in all this world a more magnificent woman than you? Mollie, I love you. Mollie, don't turn away. I worship you—I love you—I would die for you. I can't do more. Just give me a vestige of hope, and there is not a thing I would not do—not a thing. Say you love me back—say you love me back! Look at me. O my darling, my darling, how I love you!"
"Hush!" she said then; "you have no right to use such words. And now, who can think of such things? Major Strause, forget you ever said them."
"Forget," he said, "when my heart is on fire! I cannot see you without the maddest passion rising up in my heart. I have loved you from the first hour we met. Only give me hope, and I won't worry you until we are out of this horrid place."
She turned white, and leaned against the wall. His words were just the straw too much, and the next instant she burst into a flood of tears. When the strong and the brave give way, it is always a painful sight, and now Mollie's tears were as the final straw to Strause. He could not stand them. The next instant he swept his strong arms round her.