"Oh! what can I do for you?" she cried.

"Nothing, if you do not love me," he was replying mournfully, when, "Yes!
yes!" rushed to his lips; "marry me: marry me to-morrow. You have loved
me. 'I am never to leave you!' Can you forget the night when you said
it? Emilia! Marry me and you will love me again. You must. This man,
whoever he is--Ah! why am I such a brute! Come! be mine! Let me call
you my own darling! Emilia!--or say quietly 'you have nothing to hope
for:' I shall not reproach you, believe me."

He looked resigned. The abrupt transition had drawn her eyes to his.
She faltered: "I cannot be married." And then: "How could I guess that
you felt in this way?"

"Who told me that I should?" said he. "Your words have come true. You
predicted that I should fly from 'that woman,' as you called her, and
come to you. See! here it is exactly as you willed it. You--you are
changed. You throw your magic on me, and then you are satisfied, and
turn elsewhere."

Emilia's conscience smote her with a verification of this charge, and she
trembled, half-intoxicated for the moment, by the aspect of her power.
This filled her likewise with a dangerous pity for its victim; and now,
putting out both hands to him, her chin and shoulders raised
entreatingly, she begged the victim to spare her any word of marriage.

"But you go, you run away from me--I don't know where you are or what you
are doing," said Wilfrid. "And you leave me to that woman. She loves
the Austrians, as you know. There! I will ask nothing--only this: I
will promise, if I quit the Queen's service for good, not to wear the