“It seems a long time,” stammered Clara.  So it did, for the days since had been crammed with emotions and events, and they gave her young mind an impression of a long period passed.

“I have been so full of anxiety!” continued Coronado.  “Not about our dangers,” he asserted with a little bravado.  “Or, rather, not about mine.  For you I have been fearful.  The possibility that you might fall into the hands of the Apaches was a horror to me.  But, after all, my chief anxiety was to know what would be your final answer to me.  Yes, my beautiful and very dear cousin, strange as it may seem under our circumstances, this thought has always outweighed with me all our dangers.”

Coronado, as we have already declared, was really in love with Clara.  It seems incredible, at first glance, that a man who had no conscience could have a heart.  But the assertion is not a fairy story; it is founded in solid philosophy.  It is true that Coronado’s moral education had been neglected or misdirected; that he was either born indifferent to the idea of duty, or had become indifferent to it; and that he was an egotist of the first water, bent solely upon favoring and gratifying himself.  But while his nature was somewhat chilled by these things, he had the hottest of blood in his veins, he possessed a keen perception of the beautiful, and so he could desire with fury.  His love could not be otherwise than selfish; but it was none the less capable of ruling him tyrannically.

Just at this moment his intensity of feeling made him physically imposing and almost fascinating.  It seemed to remove a veil from his usually filmy black eyes, and give him power for once to throw out all of truth that there was in his soul.  It communicated to his voice a tremor which made it eloquent.  He exhaled, as it were, an aroma of puissant emotion which was intoxicating, and which could hardly fail to act upon the sensitive nature of woman.  Clara was so agitated by this influence, that for the moment she seemed to herself to know no man in the world but Coronado.  Even while she tried to remember Thurstane, he vanished as if expelled by some enchantment, and left her alone in life with her tempter.  Still she could not or would not answer; though she trembled, she remained speechless.

“I have asked you to be my wife,” resumed Coronado, seeing that he must urge her.  “I venture now to ask you again.  I implore you not to refuse me.  I cannot be refused.  It would make me utterly wretched.  It might perhaps bring wretchedness upon you.  I hope not.  I could not wish you a pain, though you should give me many.  My very dear Clara, I offer you the only love of my life, and the only love that I shall ever offer to any one.  Will you take it?”

Clara was greatly moved.  She could not doubt his sincerity; no one who heard him could have doubted it; he was sincere.  To her, young, tender-hearted, capable of loving earnestly, beginning already to know what love is, it seemed a horrible thing to spurn affection.  If it had not been for Thurstane, she would have taken Coronado for pity.