"Is it absurd to love the sweetest woman in the world--the prettiest, the most enchanting? Suzette, I tore back from the Hartz Mountains because I was told you were free--free to marry the man who loves you with all the passion of his soul. When I told you of my love months ago, you were bound to another man, you were obstinately bent upon keeping your promise to him. I had no option but to withdraw, to fight my battle, and try to live without you. I did try, Suzette. I left the ground clear for my rival. I was self-banished from my own home." "You need not have been banished. I could have kept away from Discombe." "That would have distressed my mother, whose happiness depends on your society, Suzette. You know how she loves you. To see you my wife will make her very happy. She has taken you to her heart as a daughter." "Not so much as she has taken Allan Carew to her heart. It was for his sake she liked me. I could see when we parted that it was of Allan she thought; it was for him she was sorry. I don't think she will ever forgive me for making Allan unhappy." "Not if her only son's happiness is bought with that price? Suzette, why do you keep me at arm's length--now, when there is nothing to part us; now, while I know that you love me?" "You have no right to say that. If you know it, you know more than I know myself." "Suzette, Suzette, do you deny your love?" She was crying, with her hands over her averted face. He tried to draw those hands away, eager to look into her eyes. He would not believe mere words. Only in her eyes could he read the truth. "I deny your right to question me now, while my heart is aching for Allan--Allan whom I like and respect more than any man living. He is the best friend I have in the world, after my father. He will always be my cherished and trusted friend. If in some great unhappiness I needed any other friend than my father--badly, wickedly as I have behaved to him--it is to Allan I would go for help." "What, not to me?" "To you! No more than I would appeal to a whirlwind." "You think me so unreasonable a creature?" "Yes, unreasonable! It is unreasonable in you to come here to-day. You must know that I am sorry for having behaved so badly--deeply sorry for Allan's disappointment." "I begin to think it a pity you disappointed him, if nobody is to profit by your release. Oh, forgive me, forgive me! I should have killed myself if you had persisted. At least you have saved a life. I hope you are glad of that." "I cannot talk to you while you are so foolish." "Is it foolish to tell you the truth? I bare my heart to you--to the woman I want for my wife. I am a creature full of faults; but for you I could become anything. I would be as wax, and you might mould me into whatever shape you chose. Oh, Suzette, is not love enough? Is it not enough for any woman to be loved as I love you?" "You cannot love me better than Allan did, though he never talked as wildly as you."