"Will you acknowledge the impostor who sought you in disguise?" he continued rapidly; "will you remember him who was shamed in your sight? Me, the avowed enemy of your house, who should have met any belonging to it in defiance and hate, yet came masked to your side to seek an interest in your heart? For it was so. I loved you deeply, devotedly I loved you, before that evening. So I love you now, and shall love you for ever. From the first time my eyes met yours, in that echoing scene of music and of light, I loved you, fervently as when I moved by your side in those glittering saloons, fervently as I do now, and shall do, till my heart has ceased to beat. And it was for me, Randolph Trevethlan, to creep covertly to your presence, and woo you—for I did woo you—woo you to be mine! And will you remember me now? Will you hear me—not seek to palliate a deception which I loathe, not ask for forgiveness which I despise—but will you hear me lay my love at your feet, and, oh Mildred! at least not trample on it?"
The vehemence with which he had spoken at first softened into tenderness in his last words. Mildred continued to walk slowly by his side, unable to speak, scarcely knowing what she did, with her eyes bent down, and her hands clasped before her.
"Hear me," Randolph said, in tones of passionate supplication. "Do you know the life I have led? In yon lone castle by the sea, isolated from the world, ignorant of my race, with nothing to love? Yet discontented, pining, dreaming of love? Do you know how I came forth, madly enthusiastic, to seek for fortune and fame? How still I felt my desolation? Was not the world a blank to me? Was I not alone? Yet how should you know it? I knew it not myself. Not till my eyes met yours knew I the yearnings of my heart. The truth flashed upon me in an instant. To see you and to love you, in your love to find the key to my life, to vow for you to live and die—it was a moment's work. I knew not who you were. Did I heed that? What acquaintance is needed for love? Alas! I knew you too soon. The daughter of my father's destroyer, the child of her whom I was pledged to hate, she it was I was destined to love."
Mildred cast an imploring glance into his face.
"It is vain," he said. "It is hopeless. Even now, at this very hour, she seeks to drive me from my home: from my name: my sister and me to be outcasts on earth: shunned and despised: children without a father. Think you there can be anything but hate between her and me?"
"My mother," Mildred faltered.
"It is our curse," said Randolph. "Did not my father imprecate the wrath of Heaven upon me, if I held communion with her or hers? I love you, Mildred, and the curse has fallen. And you love me," he cried in wild rapture, flinging his arm around her, and folding her to his side, "you love me, let the curse prevail."
She did not shrink from his embrace, and for some distance they proceeded in silence. He pressed her to a seat on a bank of turf.
"Speak, dearest," he whispered, "let me hear that you love me. I feel it in the beating of your heart. I read it in your face. Will you not let me hear it from your lips?"
She hid her face against his breast. There was another long silence.