"No!—please. Let me go! This is too serious—even if we did not mean it——"
"You know I mean it," he said simply.
"You must not! You understand why!... And don't—again! I am not—I do not choose to—to allow—endure—such—things——"
He still held her by one hand and she stood twisting at it and looking at him with cheeks still crimson and eyes still a little dazed.
"Please!" she repeated—and "please!" And she came toward him a step, and laid her other hand over the one that still held hers.
"Won't you be kind to me?" she said under her breath. "Be kind to me—and let me go."
"Am I unkind?"
"Yes—yes! You know—you know how it is with me! Let me go my way.... I am going anyhow!" she added fiercely; "you can't check me—not for one moment!"
"Check you from what, Strelsa?"
"From—what I want out of life!—tranquillity, ease, security, happiness——"