Ah! but he had missed his chance!  Somehow, every word he had been saying rang false to her.  She could have thrown herself as a saving angel on the side of weakness and disaster which had spoken its proper language, and with a reckless and confiding truth had appealed to the largeness of a woman’s heart.  But this patriot—­ruined so nobly—­for such disinterested purposes—­left her cold!  She began to think even—­hating herself—­of the thousands he was supposed to have made in the gambling over that wretched company—­no doubt for the “cause” too!

But before she could say a word he was kneeling beside her.

“Marcella I give me my answer!—­I am in trouble and defeat—­be a woman, and come to me!”

He had her hands.  She tried to recover them.

“No!” she said, with passionate energy, “that is impossible.  I had written to you before you came, before I had heard a word of this.  Please, please let me go!”

“Not till you explain!”—­he said, still holding her, and roused to a white heat of emotion—­“why is it impossible?  You said to me once, with all your heart, that you thanked me, that I had taught you, helped you.  You cannot ignore the bond between us!  And you are free.  I have a right to say to you—­you thirst to save, to do good—­come and save a man that cries to you!—­he confesses to you, freely enough, that he has made a hideous mistake—­help him to redeem it!”

She rose suddenly with all her strength, freeing herself from him, so that he rose too, and stood glowering and pale.

“When I said that to you,” she cried, “I was betraying “—­her voice failed her an instant—­“we were both false—­to the obligation that should have held us—­restrained us.  No! no! I will never be your wife!  We should hurt each other—­poison each other!”

Her eyes shone with wild tears.  As he stood there before her she was seized with a piteous sense of contrast—­of the irreparable—­of what might have been.

“What do you mean?” he asked her, roughly.

She was silent.

His passion rose.

“Do you remember,” he said, approaching her again, “that you have given me cause to hope?  It is those two fanatics that have changed you—­possessed your mind.”

She looked at him with a pale dignity.

“My letters must have warned you,” she said simply.  “If you had come to-morrow—­in prosperity—­you would have got the same answer, at once.  To-day—­now—­I have had weak moments, because—­because I did not know how to add pain to pain.  But they are gone—­I see my way! I do not love you—­that is the simple, the whole truth—­I could not follow you!”

He stared at her an instant in a bitter silence.

“I have been warned,”—­he said slowly, but in truth losing control of himself, “not only by you—­and I suppose I understand!  You repent last year.  Your own letter said as much.  You mean to recover, the ground—­the place you lost.  Ah, well!—­most natural!—­most fitting!  When the time comes—­and my bones are less sore—­I suppose I shall have my second congratulations ready!  Meanwhile—­”