ly to take her and do what he liked with her, if she had not
steeled herself with the fixed thought that in this case the whole
struggle must begin again, and he would know no better what to do with
her than before. He would talk only of their love, attacking her where
she could not defend herself, and took almost a pleasure in
acknowledging that she was at his mercy.

"Oh, if you want only my love," she said at last with a gesture of
despair, "I have lost all my pride. I would like nothing better than to
lie down and die in your arms. I will promise to be faithful to you all
my life; to go into a convent if you want it; to drown myself, or do any
thing but lose your love."

"It is not so very much I ask," he urged. "You fear hurting me by
marrying me. Do you ever reflect how much you will hurt me by refusing?
Do you know how solitary I am? Not a human being counts for any thing in
my life. When I go to my rooms, I am terrified to think how lonely they
will seem unless I can keep you in my mind. You are the only woman I
ever loved. You are my companion, my ideal, my life. We two souls have
wandered about the universe from all eternity waiting to meet each
other, and now after we have met and become one, you try to part us."

As he went on with this appeal, he wrought himself into stronger and
stronger expression of feeling, while Esther fell back in her chair and
covered her face with her hands.

"If I am willing to risk every thing for you, why should you refuse to
grant me so small a favor as I ask? Look, Esther! What more can I do?
Will you not make a little sacrifice of pride for me? Will you ever find
another man to love you as I do?"

"How merciless you are!" sobbed Esther.

"I ask only for time," he hurried on. "To part from you now, in this
room, at this moment, forever, is awful! You may go if you will, but I
shall follow you. I will never give you up. You are mine--mine--mine!"

His passionate cry of love was more than flesh and blood could bear.
With an uncontrollable impulse of self-abandonment Esther held out her
hand to him and he seized her in his arms, kissing her passionately
again and again, till she tore herself away.

"There, go!" said she, breathlessly. "Go! You are killing me!"

Without waiting an answer, she turned and hurried away to her room,
where, flinging herself down, she sobbed till her hysterical passion
wore itself out.

_Chapter IX_

At her usual hour for taking Esth