“Then she is implicated in this ugly affair as well as him?” I exclaimed quickly.
She saw that she had unintentionally revealed to me one very important fact, but having made such an assertion there was no withdrawing it, therefore she was forced to respond in the affirmative.
“Ah!” she cried desperately, gripping my hand in both hers. “You do not know, Willoughby, what conflicts wring my soul. I would barter worlds to tell you the truth, yet dare not. Because if I did so I would lose all your esteem and all your fond affection. I—I cannot live in this uncertainty,” she cried bursting into a torrent of tears. “I wander now a melancholy woman, and seem unthankful where most I should be grateful. Religion stays my hand from the self infliction of that blow which I have vainly sought within the jaws of death. Where can I go? Where can I hide my miserable self? A trackless desert would be paradise to all I suffer here. But it cannot be. I shall—I must—relieve my woes in everlasting sleep.”
“No, no,” I cried, kissing the trembling hands of my white-faced desperate love. “You must not talk like that, Lolita. You are marked down as the victim of these intriguers, but you shall not be. There is still life and love for us. Be patient, be brave—tell me the truth of the allegation against you and trust in me.”
“Tell you the truth,” she cried in a hoarse strained voice. “No, no, not to you—never. You would loathe and hate me then—you the man who now loves me.”
“Say also the man you love,” I urged tenderly, her hands still in mine.
Her lips compressed as her tearful eyes turned themselves upon me. She sighed convulsively, and then with a slight catch in her tremulous voice confessed with a sad sweet smile—
“Yes, Willoughby—the man I love.”
I clasped her in my arms. I felt the heaving of her breast, my throbbing heart kept pace with that within her bosom. My lips met hers—oh!—what a melting kiss. Love held my heart, entangling every thought.
And yet what changes in our fates must here be registered; what an accumulated scene of bliss and wretchedness must stain the pages that are to follow.