She tried to put her arms up around his neck and to rest her head on his shoulder; but he resisted and put her at arm's length from him.
Holding her there, he looked at her with a cold scorn in his eyes, and a heavy shadow darkening the brow that five minutes before had been so calm, so bright.
"Agnes, how dare you attempt to deceive me after all that has passed between us? Oh, woman! In the name of all true womanhood I could blush for you!"
She struggled to free herself, to get closer to him, but his stern grasp was relentless; and as tears poured down her cheeks, she clasped her hands and sobbed out: "You do not believe that I really love you! Oh! do not look at me so harshly! I am not deceiving you; as I hope for pardon and rest for my soul--as I hope to see my father's face in heaven--I am not deceiving you! I do--I do love you! When I spoke to you about Gertrude, it cost me a dreadful pang; but I thought you loved her because she resembled me; and for my child's sake I crushed my own hopes--I wanted, if possible, to save her from suffering. But you only upbraided and heaped savage sarcasms upon me. Oh, St. Elmo! if you could indeed see my poor heart, you would not look so cruelly cold. You ought to know that I am terribly in earnest when I can stoop to beg for the ruins of a heart, which in its freshness I once threw away, and trampled on."
He had seen her weep before, when it suited her purpose, and he only smiled and answered: "Yes, Agnes, you ruined and trampled it in the mire of sin; but I have rebuilt it, and, by the mercy of God, I hope I have purified it. Look you, woman! when you overturned the temple, you crumbled your own image that was set up there; and I long, long ago swept out and gave to the hungry winds the despised dust of that broken idol, and over my heart you can reign no more! The only queen it has known since that awful night twenty-three years ago, when my faith, hope, charity were all strangled in an instant by the velvet hand I had kissed in my doting fondness--the only queen my heart has acknowledged since then, is one who, in her purity soars like an angel above you and me, and her dear name is--Edna Earl."
"Edna Earl!--a puritanical fanatic! Nay, a Pharisee! A cold prude, a heartless blue! A woman with some brain and no feeling, who loves nothing but her own fame, and has no sympathy with your nature. St. Elmo, are you insane! Did you not see that letter from Estelle to your mother, stating that she, Edna, would certainly be married in February to the celebrated Mr. Manning, who was then on his way to Rome to meet her? Did you see that letter?"