“I do not think,” she ended, “that there needs more between us. I have understood you, sir, since that day at Maidstone--I think we were strangers until then; and perhaps now you may begin to understand me. Fare you well, my lord.”
She made shift to go, but he barred her passage now in earnest, his hands clenched beside him in witness of the violence he did himself to keep them there. “Not yet,” he said, in a deep, concentrated voice. “Not yet. I did you a wrong, I know. And what you say--cruel as it is--is no more than I deserve. But I desire to make amends. I love you, Hortensia, and desire to make amends.”
She smiled wistfully. “'Tis overlate to talk of that.”
“Why?” he demanded fiercely, and caught her arms, holding her there before him. “Why is it overlate?”
“Suffer me to go,” she commanded, rather than begged, and made to free herself of his grasp.
“I want you to be my wife, Hortensia--my wedded wife.”
She looked at him, and laughed; a cold laugh, disdainful, yet not bitter. “You wanted that before, my lord; yet you neglected the opportunity my folly gave you. I thank you--you, after God--for that same neglect.”
“Ah, do not say that!” he begged, a very suppliant again. “Do not say that! Child, I love you. Do you understand?”
“Who could fail to understand, after the abundant proof you have afforded me of your sincerity and your devotion?”
“Do you rally me?” he demanded, letting through a flash of the anger that was mounting in him. “Am I so poor a thing that you whet your little wit upon me?”
“My lord, you are paining me. What can you look to gain by this? Suffer me to go.”
A moment yet he stood, holding her wrists and looking down into her eyes with a mixture of pleading and ferocity in his. Then he made a sound in his throat, and caught her bodily to him; his arms, laced about her, held her bound and crushed against him. His dark, flushed face hovered above her own.
Fear took her at last. It mounted and grew to horror. “Let me go, my lord,” she besought him, her voice trembling. “Oh, let me go!”
“I love you, Hortensia! I need you!” he cried, as if wrung by pain, and then hot upon her brow and cheeks and lips his kisses fell, and shame turned her to fire from head to foot as she fought helplessly within his crushing grasp.
