She could not pretend to misunderstand him. With dilated, wondering eyes, she gazed at him, as he continued thrillingly:
“I know this seems strange to you—strange and abrupt. But once before I knew and loved a Jessie Lyndon, so like to you that you might have been twin sisters. Perhaps you have had a near relative of that name?” anxiously.
CHAPTER XXXII.
THE HEART OF A LOVER.
The stars shone on, the wind sighed, the sea moaned, but Jessie’s heart almost stopped still.
The moment she had dreaded had come at last.
He was asking her about that other Jessie Lyndon.
And she would have to answer so that he would not suspect her identity.
Her heart beat suffocatingly and almost choked her voice as she tried to speak. “I have startled you, venturing so abruptly on this subject,” he said. “I would have waited longer, only that we shall be parting to-morrow, and I feared lest I should never see you again. Ah, Jessie, that is such a horrible thought to me. I could not bear it! I cannot bear to think that I shall never see you again! I love you—love you with a passion undreamed of till now! Are you willing for me to love you, to let me try to win your heart in return?”
A sudden flash of pride shone in her eyes, and she tried to answer him with scornful words, but they died on her lips.
She loved him so dearly, oh, Heaven, in spite of all her resolves against it, that she could not bring herself to say one cruel word to him, no matter how much she knew he was to blame. If she could have known that he was speaking truly, that he actually loved her, as he said, and had he but been free she would have fallen against his breast, and sobbed out all her love in his arms, the happiest girl in the whole world.