at her rather wildly. "And then? If
I can't get you in any other way--well, I'll take you, that's all! It's
not a very pretty thing to say, is it?"

"It doesn't sound a very probable thing to do, either," answered Clare.
"I'm afraid you are out of your mind, Mr. Johnstone."

"You've driven most things out of it since I loved you," answered Brook,
beginning to walk again. "You've made me say things that I shouldn't
have dreamed of saying to any woman, much less to you. And you've made
me think of doing things that looked perfectly mad a week ago." He
stopped before her. "Can't you see? Can't you understand? Can't you feel
how I love you?"

"Don't--please don't!" she said, beginning to be frightened at his
manner again.

"Don't what? Don't love you? Don't live, then--don't exist--don't
anything! What would it all matter, if I didn't love you? Meanwhile, I
do, and by the--no! What's the use of talking? You might laugh. You'd
make a fool of me, if you hadn't killed the fool out of me with too much
earnest--and what's left can't talk, though it can do something better
worth while than a lot of talking."

Clare began to think that the heat had hurt his head. And all the time,
in a secret, shame-faced way, she was listening to his incoherent
sentences and rough exclamations, and remembering them one by one, and
every one. And she looked at his pale face, and saw the queer light in
his blue eyes, and the squaring of his jaw--and then and long afterwards
the whole picture, with its memory of words, hot, broken, and confused,
meant earnest love in her thoughts. No man in his senses, wishing to
play a part and produce an impression upon a woman, would have acted as
he did, and she knew it. It was the rough, real thing--the raw strength
of an honest man's uncontrolled passion that she saw--and it told her
more of love in a few minutes than all she had heard or read in her
whole life. But while it was before her, alive and throbbing and
incoherent of speech, it frightened her.

"Come," she said nervously, "we mustn't stay out here any longer,
talking in this way."

He stopped again, close before her, and his eyes looked dangerous for an
instant. Then he straightened himself, and seemed to swallow something
with an effort.

"All right," he answered. "I don't want to keep you out here in the
heat."

He faced about, and they walked slowly towards the house. When they
reached the door he stood aside. She saw that he did not