"
"I am for my king," he replied; "and I am enemy of him who stands between
you and me. For see: from the hour that I met you I knew that some day,
even as now, I should tell you that--I love you--indeed, Jessica, with
all my heart."
"Oh, have pity!" she pleaded. "I cannot listen--I cannot."
"You shall listen, for you have remembered me and have understood.
Voila!" he added, hastily catching her silver buckle from his bosom.
"This that you sent me, look where I have kept it--on my heart!"
She drew back from him, her face in her hands. Then suddenly she put
them out as though to prevent him coming near her, and said:
"Oh, no--no! You will spare me; I am an affianced wife." An appealing
smile shone through her tears. "Oh, will you not go?" she begged. "Or,
will you not stay and forget what you have said? We are little more than
strangers; I scarcely know you; I--"
"We are no strangers," he broke in. "How can that be, when for years I
have thought of you--you of me? But I am content to wait, for my love
shall win you yet. You--"
She came to him and put her hands upon his arm. "You remember," she
said, with a touch of her old gaiety, and with an inimitable grace, "what
good friends we were that first day we met? Let us be the same now--for
this time at least. Will you not grant me this for to-day?"
"And to-morrow?" he asked, inwardly determining to stay in the port of
New York and to carry her off as his wife; but, unlike Bucklaw, with her
consent.
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