"Please--oh, please!"
Trembling from head to foot, she obeyed him, but her face was pitiful.
She could not force herself to look at him. "Forgive," she murmured,
"and forget."
The hand he took in his was cold, but her nearness gave him comfort, as
never before. His heart was unspeakably tender toward her.
"Rose," he went on, softly, "I've been too near the other world not to
have the truth now. Tell me what you mean! Make me understand!"
She did not answer, nor even lift her eyes. She breathed hard, as though
she were in pain.
"Rose," he said again, tightening his clasp upon the hand she tried to
draw away, "did you mean that you would be my--"
"In name," she interrupted, throwing up her head proudly. "Just to help
you--that was all."
He drew her hand to his hot lips and kissed it twice. "Oh, how divinely
kind you are," he whispered, "even to think of stooping to such as I!"
"Have pity," she said brokenly, "and let me go."
"Pity?" he repeated. "In all the world there is none like yours. To
think of your being willing to sacrifice yourself, through pity of me!"
The blood came back into her heart by leaps and bounds.
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