And then, seeing that
words, those dreaded things, were on his lips, she tried to kiss them
back. But they came:
"When will you marry me?"
It all swayed a little. And with marvellous rapidity the whole position
started up before her. She saw, with preternatural insight, into its
nooks and corners. Something he had said one day, when they were talking
of the Church view of marriage and divorce, lighted all up. So he had
really never known about her! At this moment of utter sickness, she was
saved from fainting by her sense of humour--her cynicism. Not content to
let her be, people's tongues had divorced her; he had believed them! And
the crown of irony was that he should want to marry her, when she felt
so utterly, so sacredly his, to do what he liked with sans forms or
ceremonies. A surge of bitter feeling against the man who stood between
her and Miltoun almost made her cry out. That man had captured her
before she knew the world or her own soul, and she was tied to him,
till by some beneficent chance he drew his last breath when her hair was
grey, and her eyes had no love light, and her cheeks no longer grew pale
when they were kissed; when twilight had fallen, and the flowers, and
bees no longer cared for her.
It was that feeling, the sudden revolt of the desperate prisoner, which
steeled her to put out her hand, take up the paper, and give it to
Miltoun.
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