"You may never come back," Prudence said, and sat up and started to dry her tears. "What would become of me then?" "I may not, of course." He stared at her with his hot eager eyes, careless in that hour of passionate longing about the consequences involved. He knew that for himself there was only one certainty--the present. He lived in the present; it was useless to look ahead. "Aren't you ready to risk something? I'd rather leave you my widow than not have you," he declared. "I can't go away feeling that you belong to some one else. Prudence, I'm mad with jealousy. I'm jealous of that man's claim on you. I'm beside myself. I don't know what I'm saying. I know only one thing--I want you. I'm just hungry for you. I can't rest." "Oh, hush!" she said. "But you've got to hear," he insisted. "You've got to know. I've been like this since you told me your news. I lie awake at nights, thinking, thinking, till it seems as if I were going mad. I think of you always. I'm wanting you always. For years I've thought of you as mine. I meant from the beginning to win you. Life's just a nightmare for me while I know you belong to some one else. You made a mistake. Set it right, dear--as far as you can. Give yourself to me. Say you will--now." He seized her again in his arms and held her and set his lips to hers. Frightened as well as distressed. Prudence struggled against him, pushed his face gently away. She felt the quick beating of his heart against her breast while he held her close, and she knew that her own heart was beating as rapidly; the pulses in her throat were going like tiny hammers. The ardour of his kisses excited her. All the natural impulses of youth, repressed so long, leapt up to answer his passion and flamed into warmth beneath his touch. He stirred her, tempted her. She had never experienced passionate love before, but she knew it now; it burned her lips and set her blood on fire. She was a woman alight with love for the first time in her life. Her eyes glowed softly, and behind their glow, dried up as it were by that flame of love, the mist of sorrow's unshed rain welled slowly and dimmed her sight of him. "You can't refuse me," he pleaded. "My darling, you can't send me out of your life." "Oh, don't!" she sobbed, and clung to the gate, half swooning, and rested her face on her arm. "You've no right to say these things to me; it's wicked of me to listen. I ought not to have come out. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to say to you. It's all so difficult." He refused to admit the difficulty. "If you had an ounce of pluck," he said--"if you cared, you would know what to do all right. I am asking you for one thing; it's yes or no. Prudence." He gripped her shoulder and pulled her forcibly round till she faced him again.