"Forgive me, I beseech you; I love you better than all the world."

"Don't touch me! How dare you? Oh! how dare you?"

Mike watched her quivering. He saw she was sublime in her rage, and
torn with desire and regret he continued his pleadings. It was some
time before she spoke.

"And it was for this," she said, "I left my convent, and it was of
him I used to dream! Oh! how bitter is my awakening!"

She grasped one of the thin columns of the bed and her attitude
bespoke the revulsion of feeling that was passing in her soul;
beneath the heavy curtains she stood pale all over, thrown by the
shock of too coarse a reality. His perception of her innocence was a
goad to his appetite, and his despair augmented at losing her. Now,
as died the fulgurant rage that had supported her, and her normal
strength being exhausted, a sudden weakness intervened, and she
couldn't but allow Mike to lead her to a seat.

"I am sorry; words cannot tell you how sorry I am. Why do you tremble
so? You are not going to faint, say--drink something." Hastily he
poured out some wine and held it to her lips. "I never was sorry
before; now I know what sorrow is--I am sorry, Lily. I am not ashamed
of my tears; look at them, and strive to understand. I never loved
till I saw you. Ah! that lily face, when I saw it beneath the white
veil, love leaped into my soul. Then I hated religion, and I longed
to scale the sky to dispossess Heaven of that which I held the one
sacred and desirable thing--you! My soul! I would have given it to