"You have not told him. If you had, I should not say to you what I have come to say--perhaps. I should be discreet, because I could not bear that I should cause you annoyance----" "You annoy me now." "But if you have not told him----Well, what I have to say is my excuse. If he is in the church, that is the more reason that I should make haste in saying it." He moved still nearer. "I have told him," she said. "No." "Go away," said Muriel, but the menace had faded from her large eyes, her tone had ceased to challenge and begun to plead. "In one moment, if he does not come out and detain me, I shall go," said von Klausen; "but now I must speak. I went to your hotel in Paris to tell you this; I have travelled here to tell you. I will not be denied. I have the right. It is only this, the thing that I am come to say: I have learned the truth about myself and about our relations. Then I was in the power of something so new that I did not understand it. Now I know. I knew so soon as I left you that last evening, and the absence from you has taught me over and over the same lesson. I love you. No, do not draw away. When I told you in Paris that I loved you, I used that word 'love' in the basest of its senses; but now--now, _ach_, I know I love you truly; that I honour and adore you; that I hold you as sacred as the holy angels. I came only to tell you this and put myself right in your dear eyes; and you must see now that to love you thus truly is my punishment--for I have once approached foully something holy to me, and I know that, even could you care for me and forgive me, I should still be hopeless." She tried to doubt his sincerity, but she could not. Her hand, though it rested on the warm parapet, shook as if she were trembling from the cold. "Hopeless?" she repeated. "You are married," he answered. "Nothing can alter that, for in the eyes of my religion nothing but death can separate you from your husband." She remembered her teaching in the convent school. "You came here to tell me this?" she asked. "I came to tell you this and to ask if, though it will change no fact, you can forgive me for what I said in Paris." She raised her eyes to answer. As she did so she saw Stainton turning the corner of the promenade. "Here he is!" she whispered. "You are right: I didn't tell him anything. Wait. There will be another chance for us: I must have one word alone with you before--before----" "Before," concluded von Klausen, "we say good-bye for the rest of our lives." The Austrian had not been wrong; Stainton came up smiling. "Think of you running into us down here!" he said. "I'm glad to see you." He invited the Captain to dinner, and the Captain, after a furtive glance at Muriel, accepted the invitation.