"Positive. I know my own heart too well. I love another."
"Another?"
Florence had a wild fear for a moment that he was alluding to Bertha Keys. A desperate thought came into her brain.
"At any cost, I will open his eyes: I will tell him the truth," she thought.
Trevor had come nearer, and was bending forward and trying to take her hand.
"You are the one I love," he said. "How can I, who love you with all my heart and soul and strength, who would give my life for you, how can I think of anyone else? It does not matter whether you are the most amiable or the most unamiable woman in the world, Florence: you are the one woman on God's earth for me. Do you hear me, Florence; do you hear me? I love you; I have come to-day to tell you that I give my life to you. I put it into your hands. I didn't mean to speak, but the truth has been wrung from me. Do you hear me, Florence?"
Florence certainly did hear, but she did not speak. Trevor had taken her hand, and she did not withdraw it. She was stunned for a moment. The next instant there came over her, sweeping round her, entering her heart, filling her whole being, a delicious and marvellous ecstasy. The pain and the trouble vanished. The treachery, the deceit, and the fall she had undergone were forgotten. She only knew that, if Trevor loved her, she loved him. She was about to speak when her eyes fell for a moment on a page of the manuscript she had just written. Like a flash, memory came back.
It stung her cruelly as a serpent might sting. She sprang to her feet; she flung down his hand.
"You don't know whom you are talking to. If you knew me just as I am, you would unsay all those words; and, Mr. Trevor, you can never know me as I am, never, and I can never marry you."
"But do you love me? That is the point," said Trevor.