"No one has a right to ask me such a question."
"I have a right," cried the young man; "for I have been deceived, cheated, robbed of my own; and I have a right to get back my own. Diana, speak! do you love me less than you used to do? Tell me that."
"I do not change, Evan."
"Then you have no business to be anybody's wife but mine. Nothing can hinder that, Diana."
"Stop! You are not to speak so. I will not hear it."
"You are mine, Diana."
"I was yours, Evan!" she said tenderly, bending her head over him till her lips touched his hair. "We have been parted, and it is over—over for this world. You must go your way, and I must go mine. And you must not say, I am ruined."
"Do not you say it?"
"I must not."
"It is the truth for me, if I do not have you with me."