"Let us be friends first, and then who knows what may not follow?" said she, brightly. "You cannot expect me to be overprofuse in affection just after being shut up like this?"
"Gerty," said he, and he looked at her with those strangely tired eyes, and there was a great gentleness in his voice, "do you know where you are? You are close to the island that I told you of—where I wish to have my grave on the cliff. But instead of a grave, would it not be a fine thing to have a marriage here? No, do not be alarmed, Gerty! it is only with your own goodwill; and surely your heart will consent at last! Would not that be a strange wedding, too; with the minister from Salen; and your father on board; and the people from Dare? Oh, you would see such a number of boats come out that day, and we would go proudly back; and do you not think there would be a great rejoicing that day? Then all our troubles would be at an end, Gerty! There would be no more fear; and the theatres would never see you again; and the long happy life we should lead, we two together! And do you know the first thing I would get you, Gerty?—it would be a new yacht! I would go to the Clyde and have it built all for you. I would not have you go out again in this yacht, for you would then remember the days in which I was cruel to you; but in a new yacht you would not remember that any more; and do you not think we would have many a pleasant, long summer day on the deck of her, and only ourselves, Gerty? And you would sing the songs I first heard you sing, and I think the sailors would imagine they heard the singing of the mermaid of Colonsay; for there is no one can sing as you can sing, Gerty. I think it was that first took away my heart from me."
"But we can talk about all these things when I am on shore again," said she, coldly. "You cannot expect me to be very favorably disposed so long as I am shut up here."
"But then," he said, "if you were on shore you might go away again from me, Gerty! The people would get at your ear again; they would whisper things to you; you would think about the theatres again. I have saved you, sweetheart; can I let you go back?"
The words were spoken with an eager affection, and yearning; but they sank into her mind with a dull and cold conviction that there was no escape for her through any way of artifice.
"Am I to understand, then," said she, "that you mean to keep me a prisoner here until I marry you?"
"Why do you speak like that, Gerty?"
"I demand an answer to my question."
"I have risked everything to save you; can I let you go back?"
A sudden flash of desperate anger—even of hatred—was in her eyes; her fine piece of acting had been of no avail.