"Till that night in Devon?

"Let it be."

"But you love me still?"

"We won't speak of it."

"I see! You cannot forgive. Good heavens! I think I remember your
saying so once--Once! Yes, then: you said it then, during our 'Once;'
when I little thought you would be merciless to me--who loved you from
the first! the very first! I love you now! I wake up in the night,
thinking I hear your voice. You haunt me. Cruel! cold!--who guards you
and watches over you but the man you now hate? You sit there as if you
could make yourself stone when you pleased. Did I not chastise that man
Pericles publicly because he spoke a single lie of you? And by that act
I have made an enemy to our house who may crush us in ruin. Do I regret
it? No. I would do any madness, waste all my blood for you, die for
you!"

Emilia's fingers received a final twist, and were dropped loose. She let
them hang, looking sadly downward. Melancholy is the most irritating
reply to passion, and Wilfrid's heart waged fierce at the sight of her,
grown beautiful!--grown elegant!--and to reject him! When, after a
silence which his pride would not suffer him to break, she spoke to ask
what Mr. Pericles had said of her, he was enraged, forgot himself, and
answered: "Something disgraceful."

Deep colour came on Emilia. "You struck him, Wilfrid?"