"Now I know--it is the agony!"

At this admission, all the love and all the irritation in him came up
together into a force which drove him on. They were alone; none other
looked; but had all the world been looking, he might have done what he
did. He rose to his feet, he dropped both his hands on her shoulders,
he devoured her sapphirine eyes with his eyes, and his voice was steel
as he spoke:

"You love me. You have always loved me. In spite of everything, you
will marry me! You will say it before you are done with me!"

He stopped suddenly, for her eyelids were drooping. Had he not been a
physician, he would have said that she was going to faint. But her
color did not change. And suddenly she was speaking in a low tone which
mocked his, but with no expression nor intonations:

"I love you. I have always loved you. In spite of everything, I shall
marry you."

He dropped his hands from her shoulders with a bewildered impulse to
seize her in his arms; then the publicity of the place came to him, and
he drew his hands back. On that motion, her eyes opened and she flashed
a little away from him.

"What did I say?" she exclaimed; "and why--oh, don't touch me--don't
come near--can't you see it makes it harder for me to renounce?"

"But you said--"