His words sang all round me like birds. My battle-worn, enfeebled spirit reeled under such bursts of music, such flashes of glory. I made one last agonizing effort to play the conventional part: to rebuke and repel him, to parade amazement, shame, and a dishonest show of anger. But he was too strong. He dominated me so, that I could not even pause to marvel at the miracle, or to ask myself if it could be true. I could only totter towards him in dumb, unconditional surrender, and burst into a torrent of thankful tears.
This third time, he held me, not as he had held me before. Then, he had strained me to him like a lover; now, he supported me gravely, reverentially, as any man would support any woman who has half-fainted away. But, by swift degrees, he guessed the truth. He held me closer, he bent his lips to my ear, and he asked, with a grave wonder, in his voice of gold:
"Yes," I whispered, with my eyes closed, "I mean ... this."
For two or three seconds we were content to have it so. Then his clasp weakened. I knew what he meant, and I drew myself free.
"Yes," he said slowly. "We forgot Susan."
He stood beside me in silence, looking at the sea. Then, without warning, he broke out with terrible words of anger. Not to me. It was as though he arraigned the universe and shook his fist at the stars.
"A thousand curses!" he cried; "a thousand curses on their heads who have brought us all to this! It is not to be borne! It is a tangle of fiends. Great God! To be loved by the two best women on earth, and then, instead of happiness, to find it end in misery all round! It is the work of devils! It is not to be borne!"
He remembered me at his side, and fought down his wrath. At last he turned to me an ashen face, and began:
"There is much to say. Where will you sit down?"
"Nowhere," I answered. "No, do not touch me again. What there is to be said ... say."
We stood an arm's-length apart on the stones, and he spoke:
"Gertrude Langley," he said, "for five weeks I have loved you, and there is no woman in the world, save you, that I ever did love or ever shall. But, through a string of ghastly blunders hardly to be explained or even believed, I have loved you under another name, and amid wildly false notions of your station. Be hurt at nothing I shall say. I believed, on twofold testimony, that you were Susan, your maid. Do not be galled or insulted till you have heard me out."