“Do you think I don’t know?” he said.  “My dear Anne, I have always known.  That’s the damnable part of it.  You’ve wanted truth instead of treachery, honour instead of shame, love instead of—­”

She put out a quick hand.  “Don’t say it, Nap!”

He took her hand, drew it to his heart, and held it there.  “And you say you don’t want many things,” he went on, in a tone half sad, half whimsical.  “My dear, if I could give you one tenth of what you want—­and ought to have—­you’d be a lucky woman and I a thrice lucky man.  But—­we’ve got to face it—­I can’t.  I thought I could train myself, fashion myself, into something worthy of your acceptance.  I can’t.  I thought I could win back your trust, your friendship, last of all your love.  But I can’t even begin.  You can send me away from you if you will, and I’ll go for good and all.  On the other hand, you can keep me, you can marry me—­” He paused; and she fancied she felt his heart quicken.  “You can marry me,” he said again, “but you can’t tame me.  You’ll find me an infernal trial to live with.  I’m not a devil any longer.  No, and I’m not a brute.  But I am still a savage at heart, and there are some parts of me that won’t tame.  My love for you is a seething furnace, an intolerable craving.  I can’t contemplate you sanely.  I want you unspeakably.”

His hold had tightened.  She could feel his heart throbbing now like a fierce thing caged.  His eyes had begun to glow.  The furnace door was opening.  She could feel the heat rushing out, enveloping her.  Soon it would begin to scorch her.  And yet she knew no shrinking.  Rather she drew nearer, as a shivering creature starved and frozen draws near to the hunter’s fire.

He went on speaking rapidly, with rising passion.  “My love for you is the one part of me that I haven’t got under control, and it’s such a mighty big part that the rest is hardly worthy of mention.  It’s great enough to make everything else contemptible.  I’ve no use for lesser things.  I want just you—­only you—­only you—­for the rest of my life!”

He stopped suddenly, seemed on the verge of something further, then pulled himself together with a sharp gesture.  The next moment, quite quietly, he relinquished her hand.

“I’m afraid that’s all there is to me,” he said.  “Lucas would have given you understanding, friendship, chivalry, all that a good woman wants.  I can only offer you—­bondage.”

He half turned with the words, standing as if it needed but a sign to dismiss him.  But Anne made no sign.  Over their heads a thrush had suddenly begun to pour out his soul to the June sunshine, and she stood spell-bound, listening.

At the end of several breathless moments she spoke and in her voice was a deep note that thrilled like music.

“There is a bondage,” she said, “that is sweeter than any freedom.  And, Nap, it is the one thing in this world that I want—­that I need—­that I pray for night and day.”