“Valerie,” he stammered, “you care nothing for any law—­nor do I—­now—­”

“I do!  You don’t understand me!  Let me go.  Louis—­you don’t love me enough....  This—­this is madness—­wickedness!—­you can’t love me!  You don’t—­you can’t!”

“I do love you, Valerie—­”

“No—­no—­or you would let me go!—­or you would not kiss me again—­”

She freed herself, breathless, crimson with shame and anger, avoiding his eyes, and slipped out of his embrace to her knees, sank down on the rug at his feet, and laid her head against the chair, breathing fast, both small hands pressed to her breast.

For a few minutes he let her lie so; then, stooping over her, white lipped, trembling: 

“What can you expect if we sow the wind?”

She began to cry, softly:  “You don’t understand—­you never have understood!”

“I understand this:  that I am ready to take you in your way, now.  I cannot live without you, and I won’t.  I care no longer how I take you, or when, or where, as long as I can have you for mine, to keep for ever, to love, to watch over, to worship....  Dear—­will you speak to me?”

She shook her head, desolately, where it lay now against his knees, amid its tumbled hair.

Then he asked again for her forgiveness—­almost fiercely, for passion still swayed him with every word.  He told her he loved her, adored her, could not endure life without her; that he was only too happy to take her on any terms she offered.

“Louis,” she said in a voice made very small and low by the crossed arms muffling her face, “I am wondering whether you will ever know what love is.”

“Have I not proved that I love you?”

“I—­don’t know what it is you have proved....  We were engaged to each other—­and—­and—­”

“I thought you cared nothing for such conventions!”

She began to cry again, silently.

“Valerie—­darling—­”

“No—­you don’t understand,” she sobbed.

“Understand what, dearest—­dearest—­

“That I thought our love was its own protection—­and mine.”

He made no answer.

She knelt there silent for a little while, then put her hand up appealingly for his handkerchief.

“I have been very happy in loving you,” she faltered; “I have promised you all there is of myself.  And you have already had my best self.  The rest—­whatever it is—­whatever happens to me—­I have promised—­so that there will be nothing of this girl called Valerie West which is not all yours—­all, all—­every thought, Louis, every pulse-beat—­mind, soul, body....  But no future day had been set; I had thought of none as yet.  Still—­since I knew I was to be to you what I am to be, I have been very busy preparing for it—­mind, soul, my little earthly possessions, my personal affairs in their small routine....  No bride in your world, busy with her trousseau, has been a happier dreamer than have I, Louis.  You don’t know how true I have tried to be to myself, and to the truth as I understand it—­as true as I have been to you in thought and deed....  And, somehow, what threatened—­a moment since—­frightens me, humiliates me—­”