“I cannot bid you go thus,” she said, moved to pity. “Does the world know of this?”
“Of the resignation, yes; of the reason, no.”
“Then I abjure you, reveal nothing. Leave me!” she cried.
“And may I come again?” eagerly he pleaded.
“Yes,” she said, the power of resistance gone, “when I have had time to think.”
He left with a sense of mighty triumph in his soul.
CHAPTER XII. OUIDA PROPOSES MARRIAGE.
Even the preacher’s passion, the knowledge of his awful sacrifice, did not rob the artist of her inspiration for work. Proceeding to the studio, filled with treasures of brush and mallet, she found Paul, the model, and Milton, the student.