'Mr. Herring,' she spoke slowly, leisurely, 'I have no right to accept your offer, unless you confer on me the right—the only right——'
She could speak no more. Her white, quivering face, her sunken eyes, and uplifted hands that shook as with a palsy, showed her powerlessness to proceed.
Herring took a step forward. She drew back, shrinking before him as perhaps the martyr shrinks before the executioner.
'Stand there, I pray—oh, do not come nearer!' she pleaded, with pain in her voice.
'Mirelle, dear Mirelle!' he said; and then the pent-up love of his heart broke forth. He told her how he had loved her from the moment that he first saw her, how, hopeless of ever winning her, he had battled with his love, how vain his efforts had been, and how his highest ambition was to live for her and make her happy. He spoke in plain, simple words, with the rough eloquence of passion and sincerity.
She listened to him, with her hands again on the mantelpiece, looking at him, with her dark eyes wide open, and the red glow of the fire in them. She did not follow his words, she heard them without comprehending them. She was full of her own grief and could think of nothing else.
She woke out of abstraction when he asked her, 'Mirelle, may I think myself so happy as to be able to count on your being mine?'
'I will be your wife,' she said.
'Oh, dear, dear Mirelle! My whole life shall be devoted to you. This is the happiest day I have ever known.'
'One thing I must say,' said she; 'you know I am a Catholic. I will never give up my faith. You will assure me perfect freedom to follow my own dear religion. I could live without everything, but not without that.'