compel me to
hear whatever you choose to say. But I have no other answer than that
you know. I wish to leave you.'

His flushed eagerness could not at once adapt itself to another tone.

'No, you don't wish to leave me. You want to see that I am a man of my
word, that I mean what I say, and am not afraid to stick to it. Emily,
you don't leave me till you have promised to be my wife. You're a noble
girl. You wouldn't be frightened into yielding. And it isn't that way I
want to have you. You're more now in my eyes than ever. It shall be love
for love. Emily, you will marry me?'

What resources of passion the man was exhibiting! By forethought he
could have devised no word of these speeches which he uttered with such
vigour; it was not he who spoke, but the very Love God within him. He
asked the last question with a voice subdued in tenderness; his eyes had
a softer fire.

Emily gave her answer.

'I would not marry you, though you stood to kill me if I refused.'

No bravado, no unmeasured vehemence of tone, but spoken as it would have
been had the very weapon of death gleamed in his hand.

He knew that this was final.

'So you are willing that your father shall be put into the dock at the
police-court to-morrow morning?'

'If you can do that, it must be so.'

'If I _can_? You know very well I have the power to, and you ought to
know by now that I stick at nothing. Go home and think about it.'

It is useless. I have thought. If you think still to make me yield by
this fear, it is better that you should act at once. I will tell you If
I were free, if I had the power to give myself to you in marriage, it
would make your threat of no more avail. I love my father; to you I
cannot say more than that; but though I would give my life to save his
from ruin, I could not give--my father would not wish me, oh never!--my
woman's honour. You will find it hard to understand me, for you seem not
to know the meaning of such words.'

She closed with stern bitterness, compelled to it by the tone of his
last bidding. A glorious beauty flashed in her face. Alas, Wilfrid Athel
would never know the pride of seeing thus the woman he knew so noble.
But Wilfrid was in her heart; his soul allied itself with hers and gave
her double strength. Dagworthy had wrought for her that which in the
night's conflict she could not bring about by her own force; knowing, in
the face of utter despair, the whole depth of the love with which she
held