He put his lips close to her ear.

"One kiss," he said softly, and then turned them to meet hers.

Christine gave him the kiss, and it was as he had said. The stress upon her heart was loosened. She felt that she had told him all.

"You are mine," he said, in a calm, low voice of controlled exultation, although, even as he said it, he loosed her from his arms and suffered her to move away from him and sink into a chair. He came and sat down opposite her, repeating the words he had spoken.

"No," she said, "I am my own! I am the stronger to be so, now that the whole truth is known to you. Mr. Noel, I have only to tell you good-by.

To-night must be the very last of it."

"Mr. Noel!" he threw the words back to her, with a little scornful laugh. "You can never call me that again, without feeling it the hollowest pretence! I tell you you are mine!"

The a.s.sured, determined calm of his tones and looks began to frighten her. She saw the struggle before her a.s.suming proportions that made her fear for herself--not for the strength of her resolve, but for her power to carry it out. She could only repeat, as if to fortify herself:

"I will never marry you."

"Why?" he asked.

"Because--ah, because I love you too much. Be merciful, and let that thought plead for me."

"It is for the same reason that I will never give you up. It is no use to oppose me now, Christine. You are mine and I am yours."

"But if you know that you make me suffer--"

"I know, too, that I can comfort you. I know I can make you happy, beyond your highest dreams. I know I can take you away from every a.s.sociation of sadness, far off to beautiful foreign countries where no one will know us for anything but what we are--what alone we shall be henceforth, a man and woman who love each other and who have been united in the holy bond of marriage, which G.o.d has blessed--just a husband and wife, Christine--get used to the dear names and thought--with whose right to love each other no one will have anything to do. If the idea of the past disturbs you we will get rid of it by going where we have no past, where no one will ever have heard of us before. As for ourselves, Christine, I can give you my honor that there is nothing in the past of either of us that disturbs me for one pulse-beat, and I'll engage to make you forget all that it pains you to remember. Why, it is a simple thing to do. We send for a clergyman, and here in this room, with Mrs.

Murray and Eliza and Harriet for witnesses, we are married to-morrow morning! In the afternoon we sail for Europe, to begin our long life of happiness together. You know whether I could make you happy or not, Christine. You know whether your heart longs to go with me--just as surely as I know that my one possible chance of happiness is in getting your consent to be my wife."

"I cannot!" she said, "I cannot! We must think of others beside ourselves. If you are willing to sacrifice yourself, think of your mother and sisters!"

"Sacrifice myself! I sacrifice myself only if I give you up. You must feel the falseness of such a use of the word. As for my mother and sisters, I ask you to test that matter. Agree to marry me and I promise that they will come to our wedding, and my mother will call you daughter, and my sisters will call you sister, and they will open their hearts to you and love you."

"Because your will is all-powerful with them," she said.

"Yes, partly because they trust and believe in me, and will sanction what I do; and also because--in spite of a good deal of surface conventionality and worldliness--they are right-minded, true-hearted, good women, who will only need to know your whole history, as I know it, and to realize my love for you, as I can make them realize it, to feel that our marriage is the right and true and only issue of it all."

Christine felt herself terribly shaken. She did not dare to look at Noel lest her eyes might betray her, and she would not for anything have him to know how she was weakened in her resolve by what he had said of his mother and sisters. The conviction with which he spoke had carried its own force to her mind, and she suddenly found the strongest weapon with which she had fought her fight shattered in her hands. He saw that she was weakening, but he would not take advantage of it. She was so white and tremulous; her breath came forth so quick and short; the drawn lines about her mouth were so piteous that he felt she must be spared.

"I will not press you now, Christine," he said; "take time to think about it. Let me come again to-morrow morning. I will leave you now and you must try to rest. Talk freely to Mrs. Murray. Ask her what you must do. Remember that I consent to wait, only because I am so determined.

Listen to me one moment. I swear before Heaven I will never give you up.

You gave yourself to me in that kiss, and you are mine."

"Yes," she said, as if that struggle were over with her now, "I am yours. I know it. Even if we part forever I am always yours. I will tell you what I will do. Your mother shall know everything and she shall decide."

He was at once afraid and glad, and Christine saw it.

"I must see your mother," she began.

"I will see her for you. I will tell her everything and you shall see she will be for us. But if she should not, I warn you, Christine, I will not give you up for any one alive."

"Listen to me," said Christine calmly. "This is what you must do. You must go to your mother and tell her there is some one that you love.

Tell her as fully and freely as you choose. Convince her of the truth and strength of it as thoroughly as you can, and tell her that woman loves you in return, but has refused to marry you, for reasons which, if she would like to hear them, that woman herself will lay before her.

I cannot let you do it for me," she went on earnestly. "I know you would wish to spare me this, but only a woman's tongue could tell that story of misery, and only a woman's heart could understand it. You think she will love me for my misfortunes, as you have done in your great, generous heart. I do not dare to think it, but I will put it to the test. You must promise me to tell her nothing except just what I have told you. Do you promise this?"

"I promise it, upon my honor; but remember, if my mother should decide against me, I do not give you up."

"No, but I will give you up."

"Christine!" he cried. "And yet you say you love me!"

"Oh, yes, I say I love you--and you know whether it is true."

She stood in front of him and looked him firmly in the face, but the look of her clear eyes was so full of crowding, overwhelming sorrow that love, for a while, seemed to have taken flight.

In vain he tried to put his hopeful spirit into her. She only shook her head and showed him a face of deep, unhoping sorrow.

"If your mother consents to see me, appoint an hour to-morrow morning and let me know. I will take a carriage and go alone--"

"I will come for you. I will bring my mother's carriage--"

"No, I must go alone, and I prefer to go in a hired carriage. You must see that no one else is present--neither of your sisters. It is to your mother only that I can say what I have to say."

"Everything shall be as you wish. But, Christine, don't be hurt if you find my mother's manner difficult, at first. She has had a great deal of trouble, and it has made her manner a little hard--"

"Ah," she said, "I can understand that."

"But it is only her manner," Noel went on, "her heart is kind and true."

"Don't try to encourage me. I am not afraid. If she has known the face of sorrow that is the best pa.s.sport between us. Perhaps she will understand me."

"Promise me this, Christine--that whatever happens, you will see me to-morrow evening--and see me alone."

"I promise, but it may be to say good-by."

He repressed the defiant protest of his heart, secure in his strong resolve.

"Good-night, Christine," he said.

"Good-night," she answered. Her eyes seemed to look at him through a great cloud of sorrow, and her voice was like the speaking of a woman in a dream. There was a great and availing force in the mood that held her.

Noel knew she wished to be alone and that she had need of the repose of solitude. So he only clasped her hand an instant, in a strong, a.s.suring pressure, and was gone.

Exhausted, worn out, spent with sorrow, Christine retired at once to her room, and went wearily to bed, wondering what the next day would bring.

She soon fell into a deep sleep, and slept heavily till morning, waking with a confused mingling of memory and expectancy in which joy and pain were inseparably united.

XVI.