"I deny it. But you love me still?"
"Love you? More shame on me! A laugh, a compliment, a caress, a cashmere, is as much as such women as you are worth. Love becomes ridiculous named in the same breath with you."
She caught hold of his hand and crushed it in both her own.
"Kill me you will. Death would have no sting from your hand, but never speak such words to me."
His voice trembled.
"How can I choose but speak them? You know that I believed you in Italy, and how on that belief I offered you my name—a name never yet stained, never yet held unworthy. I lost you, to find you in society which stamped you for ever. A lovely fiend, holding raw boys enchained, that your associates might rifle their purses with marked cards and cogged dice. I hoped to have found a diamond, without spot or flaw. I discovered my error too late; it was only glass, which all men were free to pick up and trample on at their pleasure."
He tried to wrench his hand away, but she would not let it go.
"Hush! hush! listen to me first. If you once thought me worthy of your love, you may, surely, now accord me pity. I shall not trouble you long. After this, you need see me no more. I am going back to my old convent. You and the world will soon forget me, but I shall remember you, and pray for you, as dearer than my own soul."
Conran's head was bent down now, and his voice was thick, as he answered briefly,
"Go on."