"No," she faltered, thrilling with interest.
"I told her that since her sin I had scorned all women for her sake—her most of all! I told her that never until now had I met a woman who redeemed the sex in my eyes—a child woman so fair, so innocent, so frank and truthful, that falsehood could not breathe the same air with her—one to whom I gave the strong, passionate love of a man combined with the reverence due to an angel."
He stretched out his arms to her yearningly, his face transfigured with his mighty love.
"Beatrix, I am twice as old as you are, but I love you to madness! I have hated Cyril Wentworth in my bitter jealousy, but that is all past. Thank God, you love him no longer—you are free! Can you love me, Beatrix? Will you be my wife?"
Laurel Vane almost reeled with the suddenness of this perfect joy that had come upon her. She was face to face with the great temptation of her life, but, oh, how powerless, through her passionate love, to fight against it!
[CHAPTER XXIII.]
Deep emotion overpowered Laurel's speech for a moment. Her lips parted as if to speak, but closed again without a sound. Her fair head drooped like a beautiful flower too heavily laden with dew. It had come upon her like a great shock that St. Leon Le Roy loved her—loved her, the false Beatrix Gordon, the perjured girl living a deliberate lie beneath his roof. She called it by its worst name to herself, even though she flinched from it, for she had, as Clarice Wells said of her, a habit of calling things by their right names. To her a "spade" was a "spade." She had the moral courage to recognize her sin, but this love had made her a coward. She could not confess the truth. For the sake of this man she had risked all. She could not put his love from her now. Yet his next words stabbed her with keenest pain.
"For the first time, Beatrix, I feel like thanking God for Maud's falsity, since it has left me free to win you, my true, angel-hearted girl!"