“What can I do?” broke out Caerleon in his despair. “You do your best to break my heart, and then you expect me not even to struggle. Nadia, have you no pity? Give me some hope. Say that after a year—two years—any length of time—I may speak to you again. What is a man to do when you bring up his own sense of honour against him?”
“He must submit,” said Nadia. Caerleon stood looking at her in silence, his heart protesting wildly against the barriers she had raised between them. It was on his lips to say, “You have told me you love me, and that’s enough. Nothing shall part us.” He felt sure that his love must prevail over her scruples; she had said so herself. But she had appealed to his chivalry; how could he disappoint her? The struggle was a cruel one, and he turned away from her without a word. She saw her advantage, and went on—
“I know you will let me be proud of you still. You won’t know where I am, but I shall always watch what you are doing, and I shall feel glad to think that perhaps I have helped you—a little. And then some day you will meet some one whom it is right for you to marry, and you will remember that I wished it——”
“Are you trying to drive me mad, Nadia?” he cried, turning upon her fiercely. “If you told me you did not care for me, I could bear it better. But it makes one feel such a fool, when you have said you love me, to stand back and let you go. How can you expect it of me?”
“It is right,” she answered, slowly.
“Let me kiss you once, only once,” he entreated.
“Oh no, no, no!” she almost shrieked, feeling that her resolution must give way at the touch of his lips. “Keep your kisses for your bride!”
“I don’t think I have deserved that,” he said, bitterly. “Understand once for all, Nadia, that you need not lay the flattering unction to your soul that I shall comfort myself as you please yourself by imagining I shall do. I can’t marry you against your will, but I won’t marry any other woman. Until I met you I thought that I should never marry, and now that you won’t have me I know it. It is you or no one, and you will cheerfully sacrifice me to a fancied scruple——”
“You see that you are well rid of me,” said Nadia.
“Nonsense!” cried Caerleon. “I love you more than ever. I can’t do without you. Just think of the life to which you are condemning me. To be alone always, never to be able to get away from the glare and rush of public life, never to have any one to cheer me on, never to have a home. I thought you would have helped me. I thought you would be there to advise me when I could not see my way clearly. You always seem to be sure of the right path at once. Do you really think that marrying the Emperor of Scythia’s daughter—if I had the faintest intention of taking the advice you have been giving me to-night—would ever make up for that? I don’t mean to marry to strengthen my position in Europe. I want a wife who will look at things without fear or favour, and help me to do what is right. Isn’t this a mission for you? Tell me, my dearest, is there no chance for me?”