His voice grew almost stern.
"Nell! It is you who ought to plead for forgiveness! Yes! You have
sinned against me!"
She started and looked at him, open-eyed in her amazement.
"Yes, you also have sinned, Nell! You ought to have spoken to me,
brought your accusation. I could have explained it all; we should have
been married--and happy! And I should have been spared all these months
of unhappiness, this awful hell upon earth!"
He had struck the right note at last. Convince a woman that she has been
cruel to you, and, if she loves you, the divine attribute of pity will
awaken in her, and bring her, who a moment before was as inflexible as
adamant, to your feet.
Nell, panting for breath, looked at him; questioningly at first, then,
by short degrees, pleadingly, almost penitently.
"Drake!" she breathed piteously.
He sprang forward and caught her in his arms, and pressed a torrent of
kisses upon her lips, her hair.
"Nell! My love, my dearest! Oh, have I got you back again? Have I? Tell
me you believe me, Nell! Tell me that I may hope; that you will love me
again!"
She fought hard to resist him; but when a man holds the woman he loves,
and who loves him, in his arms, the woman fights in vain. Every sense in
her plays traitor, and fights on the man's side.
Nell put her hands on his broad chest, and tried to hold him off; but he
would not be denied.
"Nell, I love you!" he cried hoarsely. "I want you. Let the past go.
Don't hold me at arm's length, dearest! I love you! Nell, you will take
me back?"
She still struggled and protested against the flood of happiness which
overwhelmed her.
"But--but she?" she said, meaning Luce. "Since you have been
here----They say----Ah, Drake!"
He laughed as he pressed her to him.
"Let them say!" he retorted. "Nell, I'll tell you the whole truth. If
you had been engaged to poor Falconer, I should have married Luce----"
"Ah!" she breathed, with a shudder she could not repress.
"But you are not. And I am still free! And you are free! Nell, lift your
head! Give me one kiss--only one--and I will be satisfied."
Her head still drooped for a moment, then she raised it and kissed him
on the lips.
The summer breeze made music in the leaves, the linnet sang his heart
out above their heads, the soft air breathed an atmosphere of love, and
these two mortals were, after months of misery, happy beyond the power
of words to express.