Then with a low cry he stepped forward a pace or two and dropped on his knees again.
"I love you, I adore you. I have broken your heart, my angel, but it was love that forced me to it. Forgive me, and tell me if you can that there is hope,—a shadow is enough. Hope that I may some day press you to this bosom and call you mine,—mine for eternity! Virginia, hear me!—do not look so cold and cruel; you are a stone, while I am burning! I have loved you since the first moment I saw you. I wish my heart were dust for you to trample on, if it may not beat forever close to yours. With you as my bride I could conquer worlds. I could become an Angelo, a Rubens. Without you I shall die!"
He seized my hands again and covered them with kisses.
"Mr. Barr, Mr. Barr! I cannot listen to you further. Let me go,—you are mad."
"Yes, I am mad,—mad with love for you, sweet Virginia."
I tried to speak calmly, yet decisively, though from fear and pity I was trembling like a leaf. I told him that I could not grant what he asked. I loved him as a friend, as a brother almost, and would do anything to serve him but consent to become his wife. His studio was no place for such a conversation, I said. Let him come to my house, after he had thought it over. He would agree then that he had been carried away by the impulse of the moment, by the tension of his overstrained nerves, and that a marriage between us would be an absurdity. Were not our tastes and habits totally unlike?
Perhaps these were no words to address to an overwrought soul, mastered by passion. But, as I have said, I was terrified and bewildered. The strong desire I felt to treat him with all the gentleness and tender consideration I could muster, must have been to some extent neutralized by my anxiety to put an end to the interview. As I spoke, his eyes seemed to grow darker and to glow with fire, and the cunning, satyr-like expression I had noticed before to intensify.
"Pardon me," I said, "for the pain I cause you. My presence can only increase your suffering. I will leave you, and if you wish, we will talk of this to-morrow."
"To-morrow!" he answered; "there may be no to-morrow. It is still to-day! still to-day!" he repeated with a sort of chuckle. "I will live to-day, though I may die to-morrow. My goddess, my queen is here, and love—love—love!" With a bound he folded me in his huge arms and pressed my face against his lips three times in a mad embrace.
"Coward! wretch!" I screamed; but I was powerless as a babe.