"Christine," he murmured in a voice grown softer and lower still, "try not to be frightened or distressed. I cannot hold back my heart any longer. I love you--dear and good and noble one. If you could only love me a little, in return, I could make you so happy. I know I could, Christine, and as for me--why my life, if you refuse me your love, is worthless and wasted and dead. Oh, Christine, you are the very treasure of my heart, whether you will or no. Be my wife. You can make my happiness, as surely as I, if you will let me, can make yours."
He would not venture to take her hand, but he held out his to her, saying in a voice that had sunk to a whisper:
"Only put your hand in mine, Christine, in token that you will try to love me a little, and I will wait for all the rest."
He had bent very close to her, and she felt his breath against her hair as his passionate whisper fell upon her ear. Her heart thrilled to it, but she got up stiffly to her feet, bending her body away from him and covering her eyes, for a moment, with her hand.
Noel, who had risen too, stepped backward instantly. He saw her lips compressed convulsively as if in pain, and, for her sake, he thrust down into his heart its great longing, and forced himself to think of her alone. It cut him like a knife to see that she drew away from him.
"Don't shrink from me, Christine," he said. "If it distresses you for me to speak I can be silent. I was obliged to tell you, but there it can stop. I have laid the offering of my love and life before you and there it is for you to take or leave. Perhaps I have startled you. If you will only think about it and try to get used to the idea--"
"I cannot think of it!" she cried. "I utterly refuse to think of it. Oh, I am more miserable than ever I have been yet! If I am to make you unhappy--if I am to spoil your life--"
"You have beautified and glorified and crowned it with love, Christine. I should have gone to my grave without it, if you had not given it to me. It is a godlike thing to feel what I feel for you. Come what may I shall never be sorry for it. You have nothing to reproach yourself with."
Christine was very pale. She felt herself trembling as she sank into a chair and clasped her hands about her knee. Noel too sat down, but farther away from her than he had been before.