"You—you want to be rid of me again, so soon, Hugh?"
He bent over the table with a set face, silent until his undeviating gaze caught and held her eyes.
"Mary," he said slowly, "I want you. I mean to have you. Only by getting away from this place will that be possible. You must come to me of your own will."
She made the faintest negative motion of her head, her eyes fixed to his in fascination.
"You will," he insisted, in the same level tone. "If you love me, as you say, you must.... No—that's nonsense I won't listen to! Renunciation is a magnificent and noble thing, but it must have a sane excuse.... You said a while ago, this was a commonplace world, life an everyday affair. It is. The only thing that lifts it out of the deadly, intolerable rut is this wonderful thing man has invented and named Love. Without it we are as Nature made us—brute things crawling and squabbling in blind squalor. But love lifts us a little above that: love is supernatural, the only thing in all creation that rises superior to nature. There's no such thing as a life accursed; no such thing as a life that blights; there are no malign and vicious forces operating outside the realm of natural forces: love alone is supreme, subject to no known laws. I mean to prove it to you; I mean to show you how little responsible you have been in any way for the misfortunes that have overtaken men who loved you; I shall show you that I am far more blameworthy than you.... And when I have done that, you will come to me."
"I am afraid," she whispered breathlessly—"I am afraid I shall."
He rose. "Till then, my dearest girl, don't, please don't ever shrink from me again. I may not be able to dissemble my love, but until your fears are done away with, your mind at rest, no act of mine, within my control, shall ever cause you even so much as an instant's annoyance or distress."
His tone changed. "I'll go now and build my fires. When you are ready—?"
"I shan't be long," she said.
But for long after he had left her, she lingered moveless by a window, her gaze following him as he moved to and fro: her face now wistful, now torn by distress, now bright with longing. Strong passions contended within her—love and fear, joy and regret; at times crushing apprehensions of evil darkened her musings, until she could have cried out with the torment of her fears; and again intimations possessed her of exquisite beauty, warming and ennobling her heart, all but persuading her.