h such pale dismay. An instant she stood like one who saw a
chasm widening before her, which she had no power to cross. Then as if
disappointment was a thing impossible and unknown, she seized the
imploring hands in a grasp that turned them white with its passionate
pressure as she cried--

"No, I will not! I have waited for your love so long I cannot give it
up; you shall not take it from me!"

But as if the words had made the deed irrevocable, Warwick put her away,
speaking with the stern accent of one who fears a traitor in himself.

"I cannot take from you what you never had. Stand there and hear me. No;
I will have no blandishments to keep me from my purpose, no soft words
to silence the hard ones I mean to speak, no more illusions to hide us
from each other and ourselves."

"Adam, you are cruel."

"Better seem cruel than be treacherous; better wound your pride now than
your heart hereafter, when too late you discover that I married you
without confidence, respect, or love. For once in your life you shall
hear the truth as plain as words can make it. You shall see me at my
best as at my worst; you shall know what I have learned to find in you;
shall look back into the life behind us, forward into the life before
us, and if there be any candor in you I will wring from you an
acknowledgment that you have led me into an unrighteous compact.
Unrighteous, because you have deceived me in yourself, appealed to the
baser, not the nobler instincts in me, and on such a foundation there
can be no abiding happiness."

"Go on, I will hear you." And conscious that she could not control the
will now thoroughly aroused, Ottila bent before it as if meekly ready to
hear all things for love's sake.

A disdainful smile passed over Warwick's face, as with an eye that fixed
and held her own, he rapidly went on, never pausing to choose smooth
phrases or soften facts, but seeming to find a relish in the utterance
of bitter truths after the honeyed falsehood he had listened to so long.
Yet through all the harshness glowed the courage of an upright soul, the
fervor of a generous heart.

"I know little of such things and care less; but I think few lovers pass
through a scene such as this is to be, because few have known lives like
ours, or one such as we. You a woman stronger for good or ill than those
about you, I a man untamed by any law but that of my own will. Strength
is royal, we both possess it; as kings and queens drop their