"I warned you, Ailsa! I told you that I am unfit to love you. No woman could ever marry me! No woman could even love me if she knew what I am! You understood that. I told you. And now—good God!—I'm telling you I love you—I can't let you go!—your hands:—the sweetness of them—the——"
"I—oh, it must not be—this way——"
"It is this way!"
"I know—but please try to help.—I—I am not afraid to—love you———"
Her slender figure trembled against him; the warmth of her set him afire. There was a scent of tears in her breath—a fragrance as her body relaxed, yielded, embraced; her hands, her lids, her: hair, her mouth, all his now, for the taking, as he took her into his arms. But he only stared down at what lay there; and, trembling, breathless, her eyes unclosed and she looked up blindly into his flushed face.
"Because I—love you," she sighed, "I believe in all that—that I have—never—seen—in you."
He looked back into her eyes, steadily:
"I am going mad over you, Ailsa. There is only destruction for you in that madness. . . . Shall I let you go?"
"W-what?"
But the white passion in his face was enough; and, involuntarily her lids shut it out. But she did not stir.