, and all my mental perceptions were
blinded and forced down under the pressure of the physical senses.

"Take me into your life, Victor. I swear I won't interfere with your
work. Let me sit somewhere beside you all day long while you write, and
let me lie all night long watching you while you write, if you like!
Oh, do let me! do speak to me?"

She pressed my hand in, convulsively, upon her breast, until it seemed
to be in the midst of tremulous warmth, close upon the throbbing heart
itself. I could not think. Thought seemed slipping from me. I felt
sinking deeper each minute into the quicksand of desire. Nothing seemed
clear any longer. All within my brain was merged into one hot, clinging
haze, in which still loomed the idea that I must not yield. It would be
dishonourable to my father, disappointing to myself, destructive to my
work. I could not realise it then, could not see it, but I knew and
remembered in a dim way that it was so, that it had been so decided,
and I must adhere to it.

"It is impossible, Lucia."

"Why?"

"Because I promised my father we should not marry until I had got out
some book."

"But rescind the promise! Say that you cannot carry it out! Give up all
help from him, and let us live our lives apart!"

"I have no means to do it with."

"You can make them! Surely with all your knowledge you can get some
ordinary work to do till you can get your works out!"

"Even if I had the means I could not, after the understanding between
us, after all he has done for me, throw him over at a moment's notice."

"He has no right to ask such a sacrifice!"

"It has all been thought out," I said dully, "and settled before. I
can't re-argue it all now. I decided it finally before I left England,
and I am in the same position now as I was then."

A scarlet colour stole into the rose glow on Lucia's face.

"You don't care for me, Victor!" she said passionately. "You can't! No
man could and speak so!" and she threw my hand from her and herself
into the long chair in a sudden, wild storm of excited tears.

I hardly knew what I was doing. I felt as if I had been struck sharply
on the eyes as I heard her words. I fell on my knees beside her chair,
and put both my arms up and clasped them round the soft waist, and let
them lean hard on the hips, in a spasm of angry passion.

"What are you thinking of? You know there is nothing I covet like
yourself," I said savagely, the blood flowing over my face as ho