"Listen, listen! Let me say a word. How do you think it makes a man feel to hear what you have told me to-night? to see you as you are, to grow to know you in such a short—in such a terrible way, and in a few hours to grow to know you so well, to find you dear, desirable, and then to leave you, as you tell me I must leave you. I can't do it; I have never been so miserable in my life, and if I find I am entirely helpless to serve you I can never get over the regret."
Felicia Warren turned a little.
"I have found you near disaster," Bulstrode urged, "I must and will see you to the shore. If you utterly refuse to let me take care of you as I can and will, will you then," he hesitated, then brought it out—"Will you marry Prince Pollona?"
She drew from him with a cry, and by what he said she seemed to have gained sudden strength.
"My God!" she breathed, "You ask me that? Oh, it proves, it proves how less than nothing I am..."
Bulstrode saw he could not, must not undeceive her.
"If you wish me to do that," she cried. "Oh, how dreadfully, how cruelly, it breaks my dream!"
Bulstrode said authoritatively, "Listen! listen for one moment."
The eyes of the girl were dark with defiance; she brushed her hair off her brow with the back of her hand and stared straight before her.
"—Otherwise," said Bulstrode, "I will remain here; I shall not leave these rooms till morning and you will then be forced to marry me, and since you think as you do, since I have told you my secret, ruin perhaps three lives."