. Mr. Powys found me on a wharf by the river at night."

A groan burst from Wilfrid. Emilia's instinct had divined the antidote
that this would be to the poison of revived love in him, and she felt
secure, though he had again taken her hand; but it was she who nursed
a mere sentiment now, while passion sprang in him, and she was not
prepared for the delirium with which he enveloped her. She listened to
his raving senselessly, beginning to think herself lost. Her tortured
hands were kissed; her eyes gazed into. He interpreted her stupefaction
as contrition, her silence as delicacy, her changeing of colour
as flying hues of shame: the partial coldness at their meeting he
attributed to the burden on her mind, and muttering in a magnanimous
sublimity that he forgave her, he claimed her mouth with force.

"Don't touch me!" cried Emilia, showing terror.

"Are you not mine?"

"You must not kiss me."

Wilfrid loosened her waist, and became in a minute outwardly most cool
and courteous.

"My successor may object. I am bound to consider him. Pardon me.
Once!--"

The wretched insult and silly emphasis passed harmlessly from her: but
a word had led her thoughts to Merthyr's face, and what is meant by the
phrase 'keeping oneself pure,' stood clearly in Emilia's mind. She
had not winced; and therefore Wilfrid judged that his shot had missed
because there was no mark. With his eye upon her sideways, showing its
circle wide as a parrot's, he asked her one of those questions that
lovers sometimes permit between themselves. "Has another--?" It is here
as it was uttered. Eye-speech finished the sentence.

Rapidly a train of thought was started in Emilia, and she came to
this conclusion, aloud: "Then I love nobody!" For she had never kissed
Merthyr, or wished for his kiss.

"You do not?" said Wilfrid, after a silence. "You are generous in being
candid."

A pressure of intensest sorrow bowed his head. The real feeling in him
stole to Emilia like a subtle flame.

"Oh! what can I do for you?" she cried.

"Nothing, if you do not love me," he was replying mournfully, when,
"Yes! yes!" rushed to his lips; "marry me: marry me to-morrow. You have
loved me. 'I am never to leave you!' Can you forget the night when you
said it? Emilia! Marry me and you will love me again. You must. This
man, whoever he is--Ah! why am I such a brute! Come! be mine! Let me
call you my own darling! Emilia!--or say quietly 'you have nothing to
hope for:'