‘Never wavered!’ he cried savagely. ‘You are made of stone. I have been trying you. I have been waiting for you to give way. I knew it must come in the end, for I know that you love me—I know it—I know it. I have known it almost ever since I came back to South Hill, and saw your cheek whiten when you recognised me; and I have been waiting to see how long this drama of self-sacrifice would last—how long you would deny your love, and falsify your whole nature. It has lasted long enough, Daphne. The chase has been severe enough. Your tender feet have been wounded by the thorny ways of self-sacrifice. Your poor Apollo’s patience is well-nigh worn out. My love, my love, why should we go on dissembling to each other, and to all the rest of the world, looking at each other with stony countenances—dumb—cold, when every throb of each burning heart beats for the other, when every feeling in each breast responds to its twin soul, as finely as a note of music to the touch of the player? Let us end it all, Daphne. Let us make an end of this long dissimulation—this life of hypocrisy. Come with me, dear; fly with me. Now, Daphne—now, this instant, before there is time for either of us to repent. We can be married to-morrow morning at Geneva—it can be easily managed in that Puritan city. Come away with me, my beloved. I will honour and respect your purity as faithfully as if a hundred knights rode at your saddle-bow. My beloved, do you think that good can come to anyone by a life-long lie, by the trampling out of Nature’s sweetest purest feeling in two loving hearts?’ He had drawn her to his breast. Folded in a lover’s arms for the first time in her life, she looked up into eyes whose passionate ardour seemed to encompass her with a divine flame: as if this man who clasped her to his breast had been indeed the old Greek god, sublime in the radiance of youth and genius and immortal beauty. ‘Daphne, will you be my wife?’ ‘I cannot answer that question yet,’ she said slowly, falteringly, after a pause of some moments. ‘You must give me time. Let me go now—this instant. I must hurry back to the hotel.’ ‘What! when I hold you in my arms for the first time?—when I am steeped in the rapture of a satisfied love? Oh Daphne, if you knew how often in feverish dreams I have held you thus; I have looked down into your eyes, and drunk the nectar of your lips. What?’ as she drew herself suddenly away from him; ‘even now you refuse me one kiss—the solemn pledge of our union; cruel, too cruel girl!’ ‘To-morrow shall decide our fate,’ she said. ‘For pity’s sake, as you are a gentleman, let me go.’ He released her that moment. His arms dropped at his sides, and she was free.