"You don't believe I love you, Paul; and I can't blame you for it, I
can't blame you," she sobbed; "but I do, oh, I do!"
"I do believe it. I know it," he said. "Don't think that I doubt it, and
don't cry now, for after this your love shall be enough for me. I will
not trouble you any more with importunings to be my wife. I have been
very cruel to you."
"It is because I love you that I will not marry you," she sobbed.
"Promise me you will never doubt that. Don't ask me to explain to you why
it is; only believe me."
"I think I understand why it is already," he replied, gently. "I was very
dull not to know before. If I had known, I should not have caused you so
much grief."
She raised her head from his shoulder.
"What is it that you know?" she asked, quickly.
He thereupon proceeded to tell her, in tenderest words of reverence,
what, in his opinion, was the mystical cause, unsuspected, perhaps, even
by herself, of her unconquerable repugnance to the idea of being his
wife, truly as he knew she loved him. He blamed himself that he had not
recognized the sacred instinct which had held her back, but in his
selfish blindness had gone on urging her to do violence to her nature.
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