He spoke with the utmost calmness, but her heart misgave her. She saw herself at his mercy, an impotent prisoner striving against him, vainly beating out her will against the iron of his. In that moment she realized fully that not by strength could she prevail, and desperately she began to plead. "But you will set me free, Max! You wouldn't--you couldn't--hold me against my will!" "Couldn't I?" said Max, and grimly smiled. "There is nothing whatever that I couldn't do with you, Olga,--with--or without--your will." She shivered sharply and uncontrollably, not attempting to contradict him. "And that being so," he said, "it is not my intention to set you free. There is no earthly reason why you should not marry me, and therefore I hold you to your engagement. That is quite understood, is it?" His hold tightened upon her. She saw that he meant every word, and her heart died within her. Her strength was running out swiftly, swiftly. Very soon it would be utterly gone. She cast a desperate glance upwards, and made one last supreme effort. "But, Max," she pleaded, "I thought you loved me." His face was set in iron lines, but she thought it softened ever so slightly at her words. Had she pierced the one vulnerable point in his armour at last? She wondered, scarcely daring to hope. "Well?" he said. Only the one word; but somehow, inexplicably, her heart cried shame upon her, as though she had put a good weapon to an unworthy use. She stood before him, trying vainly to drive it home. But she could not. Further words failed her. "I see," he said at last. "You think out of my love for you I ought to be willing to give you up. Is that it?" She nodded mutely, not daring to look at him, still overwhelmed with that shamed sense of doing him a wrong. "I see," he said again. "And--if it would be for your happiness to let you go--I might perhaps be equal to the sacrifice." His voice was suddenly cynical, and she never guessed that he cloaked an unwanted emotion therewith. "But take the other view of the case. You know you would never be happy away from me." "I couldn't be happy with you--now," she murmured. He bent slightly towards her as if not sure that he had heard aright. "Do you really mean that?" he asked. She was silent. "Olga!" he said insistently. Against her will she raised her eyes, and met his close scrutiny. Against her will she answered him, breathlessly, out of a fevered sense of expediency. "Yes--yes, I do mean it! Oh, Max, you must--you must let me go!" But he held her still. "You have appealed to my love," he said. "I appeal to yours." But that was more than she could bear; the sudden tension snapped the last shreds of her quivering strength. She broke down utterly, standing there between his hands. He made no attempt to draw her to him. Perhaps he did not wholly trust himself. Neither did he let her go; but there was no element of cruelty about him any longer. In silence, with absolute patience, he waited for her.