Part 19

"Christine," he said, "you love me."

She met his ardent, agitated gaze with direct, unflinching eyes.

"Yes," she said distinctly, "I love you," but with the exertion of all her power she shook herself free from his grasp, and sprang away from him to the farthest limit of the little room.

"Stop," she said, waving him back with her hand. "I have owned the truth, but I must speak to you--"

As well might Christine have tried to parley with a coming storm of wind. The chained spirit within Noel had been set free by the words, "Yes, I love you," that Christine had spoken, and his passionate love must have its way. He followed her across the room, and with a gentle force, against which she was as helpless as a child, he compelled her to come into his arms, to put down her head against his shoulder and to rest on his her bounding heart. He held her so in a close, restrictive pressure, against which she soon ceased to struggle, but lay there still and unresisting.

"Now," he said gently, speaking the low word softly and clearly in her ear, "now, speak, and I will listen."

"I love you," she said brokenly.

Their full hearts throbbed together as he answered:

"That is enough."

"It is all--the utmost," she went on. "I can never marry you. When you loose me from your arms to-night it will be forever. Hold me close a little longer while I tell you."

Her voice was faint and uncertain; her frame was trembling; he could feel the whole weight of her body upon him, as he held her against his exultant heart, while the power that had come into him gave him a strength so mighty that he supported the sweet burden as if its weight were nothing.

"Go on," he murmured gently, in a secure and quiet tone, "I am listening."

"I only want to tell you, if I can, how much I love you. I want you to know it all, that the torment of having it unsaid may leave me."

Of her own will she raised her arms and put them about his neck, laying down her face on one of them, so that her lips were close against his ear.

"At the first," she said, "I liked and admired you because I saw you were good and noble. Then I trusted you, and made your truth my anchor in the awful seas of trouble I was tossed in. Then I came to reverence and almost worship you for the highness that is in you, and then, oh, then after my baby died and my other dreadful sorrow came, against my will, in spite of hard fighting and struggling and trying, I went a step higher yet and loved you, with a love that takes in all the rest--that is admiration, and trust, and reverence, and love in one. Oh," she said with a great sigh, "but it is all in vain! I cannot tell you--I cannot! I say the utmost, and it seems pale and poor and miserably weak. You do not understand the love you have called into being in my poor, broken heart. I thought I should have the comfort of feeling I had told you. I feel only that I have failed! Oh, before we part, I want you to know how I love you--how the stress of it is bursting my heart--how the mightiness of it seems to expand my soul until it touches Heaven. Oh, if I could only ease my heart of its great weight of love by finding words to tell you."

He put his lips close to her ear.

"One kiss," he said softly, and then turned them to meet hers.

Christine gave him the kiss, and it was as he had said. The stress upon her heart was loosened. She felt that she had told him all.

"You are mine," he said, in a calm, low voice of controlled exultation, although, even as he said it, he loosed her from his arms and suffered her to move away from him and sink into a chair. He came and sat down opposite her, repeating the words he had spoken.

"No," she said, "I am my own! I am the stronger to be so, now that the whole truth is known to you. Mr. Noel, I have only to tell you good-by. To-night must be the very last of it."

"Mr. Noel!" he threw the words back to her, with a little scornful laugh. "You can never call me that again, without feeling it the hollowest pretence! I tell you you are mine!"

The assured, determined calm of his tones and looks began to frighten her. She saw the struggle before her assuming proportions that made her fear for herself--not for the strength of her resolve, but for her power to carry it out. She could only repeat, as if to fortify herself:

"I will never marry you."

"Why?" he asked.

"Because--ah, because I love you too much. Be merciful, and let that thought plead for me."

"It is for the same reason that I will never give you up. It is no use to oppose me now, Christine. You are mine and I am yours."

"But if you know that you make me suffer--"

"I know, too, that I can comfort you. I know I can make you happy, beyond your highest dreams. I know I can take you away from every association of sadness, far off to beautiful foreign countries where no one will know us for anything but what we are--what alone we shall be henceforth, a man and woman who love each other and who have been united in the holy bond of marriage, which God has blessed--just a husband and wife, Christine--get used to the dear names and thought--with whose right to love each other no one will have anything to do. If the idea of the past disturbs you we will get rid of it by going where we have no past, where no one will ever have heard of us before. As for ourselves, Christine, I can give you my honor that there is nothing in the past of either of us that disturbs me for one pulse-beat, and I'll engage to make you forget all that it pains you to remember. Why, it is a simple thing to do. We send for a clergyman, and here in this room, with Mrs. Murray and Eliza and Harriet for witnesses, we are married to-morrow morning! In the afternoon we sail for Europe, to begin our long life of happiness together. You know whether I could make you happy or not, Christine. You know whether your heart longs to go with me--just as surely as I know that my one possible chance of happiness is in getting your consent to be my wife."