and unto what
loathly example of the hideous grotesque she, in spite of her lover's
foresight on her behalf, had become allied.

Face to face as they sat, she had no defence for her scarlet cheeks; her
eyes wavered.

'We will land here; the cottagers shall row the boat up,' she said.

'Somewhere--anywhere,' said Beauchamp. 'But I must speak. I will tell you
now. I do not think you to blame--barely; not in my sight; though no man
living would have suffered as I should. Probably some days more and you
would have been lost. You looked for me! Trust your instinct now I'm with
you as well as when I'm absent. Have you courage? that 's the question.
You have years to live. Can you live them in this place--with honour? and
alive really?'

Renee's eyes grew wide; she tried to frown, and her brows merely
twitched; to speak, and she was inarticulate. His madness, miraculous
penetration, and the super-masculine charity in him, unknown to the world
of young men in their treatment of women, excited, awed, and melted her.
He had seen the whole truth of her relations with M. d'Henriel!--the
wickedness of them in one light, the innocence in another; and without
prompting a confession he forgave her. Could she believe it? This was
love, and manly love.

She yearned to be on her feet, to feel the possibility of an escape from
him.

She pointed to a landing. He sprang to the bank. 'It could end in nothing
else,' he said, 'unless you beat cold to me. And now I have your hand,
Renee! It's the hand of a living woman, you have no need to tell me that;
but faithful to her comrade! I can swear it for her--faithful to a true
alliance! You are not married, you are simply chained: and you are
terrorized. What a perversion of you it is! It wrecks you. But with me?
Am I not your lover? You and I are one life. What have we suffered for
but to find this out and act on it? Do I not know that a woman lives, and
is not the rooted piece of vegetation hypocrites and tyrants expect her
to be? Act on it, I say; own me, break the chains, come to me; say, Nevil
Beauchamp or death! And death for you? But you are poisoned and
thwart-eddying, as you live now: worse, shaming the Renee I knew.
Ah-Venice! But now we are both of us wiser and stronger: we have gone
through fire. Who foretold it? This day, and this misery and perversion
that we can turn to joy, if we will--if you will! No heart to dare is no
heart to love!--answer that! Shall I see you cower awa