ou
are trifling with? Do you know what a man's heart is? what his love
means--such love as mine?"

"Such love as yours!" said Gwladys coldly. "Such love, indeed! that
could lead an innocent girl into the path of deceit and dishonour; that
could leave her then to bear desertion and the cold scorn of the world,
alone and friendless; and now to return, and expect to find her
unchanged and still blinded to the truth!"

"Valmai!" said Cardo, his hot Welsh blood suffusing his dark face with
passion, "you could never have loved me. Do the strong bonds that
united us count for nothing? Does that little green mound in the
churchyard count for nothing? No! you never could have loved me; and
yet--you did!"

"If I ever did," said Gwladys, "the love is dead. I feel no more
interest in you now than I do in yonder ploughman."

"Girl, you are my wife," said Cardo, who was trembling with a mixture
of anger and wounded love. "You are mine by every law of God and man,
and I will not let you go." Then suddenly changing into a tone of
excited entreaty, he said, "Come, darling, trust me once more, and I
will bring back the light of love into those frozen eyes, and I will
kiss back warmth into those haughty lips."

"Away!" said Gwladys.

"Do you wish, then, never to see me again?"

"Never!" she said. "My greatest wish is never to see you or hear of
you again!"

Cardo sank on the garden seat, feeling himself more perfectly unmanned
than he had ever been before. He had built such fair castles of hope,
the ruin was so great; he had dreamt such dreams of happiness--and the
awakening was so bitter!

Gwladys saw the storm of feeling which had overwhelmed him, and for a
moment her voice softened.

"I am sorry for you," she said; "but I have given you my answer."

The slight tone of tenderness in her voice seemed to restore Cardo to
life. He crossed the velvet path, and, laying hold of her hands, which
she in vain tried to wrest from his grasp.

"You are mine!" he said, "and I challenge heaven and earth to take you
from me!"

"It is base and dishonourable," said Gwladys, still struggling in his
grasp, "to frighten a friendless girl and force your presence upon her."

But Cardo's grasp was suddenly relaxed. Dropping his arms at his
sides, and going back a step or two, he stood aside to let her pass.
His long-tried temper had over-mastered him, as with a scornful voice
he spoke for the last time.

"One word before you g