h me, and be commended and blessed here, while over in France
homage shall be done you. For you I would take from his Majesty a
dukedom which he has offered me more than once."

Suddenly, with a passionate tone, he continued: "Your own heart is
speaking for me. Have I not seen you tremble when I come near you?"

He rose and came forward a step or two. "You thought it was fear of me.
It was fear, but fear of that in you which was pleading for me, while
you had sworn yourself away to him who knows not and can never know how
to love you, who has nothing kin with you in mind or heart--an alien of
poor fortune, and poorer birth and prospects."

He fixed his eyes upon her, and went on, speaking with forceful
quietness: "Had there been cut away that mistaken sense of duty to him,
which I admire unspeakably--yes, though it is misplaced--you and I would
have come to each other's arms long ago. Here in your atmosphere I feel
myself possessed, endowed. I come close to you, and something new in me
cries out simply, 'I love you, Alixe, I love you!' See, all the damnable
part of me is burned up by the clear fire of your eyes; I stand upon the
ashes, and swear that I can not live without you. Come--come--"

He stepped nearer still, and she rose like one who moves under some
fascination, and I almost cried out, for in that moment she was his,
his--I felt it; he possessed her like some spirit; and I understood it,
for the devilish golden beauty of his voice was like music, and he had
spoken with great skill.

"Come," he said, "and know where all along your love has lain. That
other way is only darkness--the convent, which will keep you buried,
while you will never have heart for the piteous seclusion, till your
life is broken all to pieces; till you have no hope, no desire, no love,
and at last, under a cowl, you look out upon the world, and, with a dead
heart, see it as in a pale dream, and die at last: you, born to be a
wife, without a husband; endowed to be the perfect mother, without
a child; to be the admired of princes, a moving, powerful figure to
influence great men, with no salon but the little bare cell where you
pray. With me all that you should be you will be. You have had a bad,
dark dream; wake, and come into the sun with me. Once I wished for you
as the lover only; now, by every hope I ever might have had, I want you
for my wife."

He held out his arms to her and smiled, and spoke one or two low words
which I could