e said, bewildered.

"I mean that the supreme desire of my heart is, and has been from the
moment my eyes rested on you, to make you Lady Hurdly absolutely and
at once, instead of your waiting for a name and position which, after
all, may never come to you."

Her heart beat so that her breathing came in smothered gasps. The
piercing demand of his eyes was almost terrifying to her. She saw
that he was absolutely in earnest, and the commiseration which she
felt for Horace struggled with the dazzling temptation which this
opportunity offered to that strong ambition which was so great an
element in her essential nature.

"Do not be shocked or startled by the suddenness of my proposal," he
said. "I trust that you will come to see that it is eminently wise
and reasonable. When I said the marriage was an unsuitable one, I was
thinking more of you than of Horace. Your beauty, your manner, your
voice, your words, your whole ego and personality, show you to have
been born for a great position. It is a case of manifest destiny. The
fortune and the social rank that I can bestow are all too little for
you; I should like to be able to put a queen's crown on your
beautiful head. But such as I am--a man who has made his impression
on the current history of his country, and who, though no longer
young in the crude sense that counts only by months and years, is
still by no means old--and such things as I have and can command, I
lay at your feet, begging you humbly to impart to them a value which
they have never had before, by accepting them and becoming the sharer
of my name, my position, and my fortune, and the mistress of my
heart."

He had risen and was standing in front of her with the resolution of
a strong purpose in his eyes. But she could not meet them, those
dominating, searching eyes. The thoughts that his words had given
rise to were too agitating, too uncertain, too tormenting to her. The
thought of giving Horace up pained her more than she would have
believed, while the vision of the grandeur so urged upon her, which
not ten minutes gone she had seen dashed like a full beaker from her
thirsty lips, tormented her as well. It was to her a vast sacrifice
to think of resigning such possibilities, yet at the first she had no
other thought but to resign them. The arguments for Horace's future
career which had been urged upon her also played their part in her
consciousness now, and the seething confusion of images in her brain