"I am sure you love me, Florence."
"Love you!" her breath swelled and fluttered as the words left her lips. "Love! I fear—I know that all this is idolatry!"
"Else why are you here."
"Truly, most truly!"
"Risking all things, even reputation, for me, and I so unworthy."
"Reputation!" cried Florence, her pride suddenly stung with the venom that lay within those honied words. "Not reputation, Jameson; I do not risk that; I could not—it would be death!"
"And yet you are here, alone with me, beloved, in this old house."
"But I am here to become your wife—only to become your wife. I risk my father's displeasure—I know that—I am disobedient, wicked, cruel to him, but his good name—my own good name—no, no, nothing that I have done should endanger that."
The proud girl was much agitated, and the dove-like fondness that had brooded in her eyes a moment before began to kindle up to an expression that the lover became earnest to change.
"You take me up too seriously," he said, attempting to draw her toward him, but she resisted proudly. "I only spoke of possible not probable risk, and that because the clergyman would be persuaded to come down here only on a promise that the marriage should be kept a secret till some means could be found of reconciling the old gentleman, or at any rate for a week or two."