For God's sake, even if you don't
care for me as things are now between us, let me take you away from all
this, let me put you where you will be safe, where you can be what you
were meant to be."
"I--I don't understand," Mary said, her breath coming so quickly that
her words seemed stopped, and broken like water that tries to run past
scattered stones.
"Don't you? Don't you understand that I love you desperately, that I
can't bear my life because I love you so, and because I see you
drowning? I'm telling you this in spite of myself. But I know now it had
to be. I swear to you, if you'll trust me, if you'll come away with me,
you shan't repent. Let me put you somewhere in a safe and beautiful
place. That's all I ask. I want no more. I shall force myself to want no
more."
"You--love me?" Mary repeated, still in the dream that was made of music
and moonlight, the ripple of the sea and the stirring of something new
in her nature of which all these sweet and beautiful things seemed part.
"Love! I never thought this could happen to me."
Suddenly he caught her hands and held them so that she was forced to
turn and look at him, instead of gazing out at sea and moonlight.
"Does it mean anything to you?" he asked, almost fiercely.
"Oh, a great deal," she answered. "I hardly know how much yet. It is so
wonderful--so new. Yet somehow not new. I must think about it. I
must----"
It was on her lips to say "I must pray about it," but something stopped
her.
Pages:
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266