"You loved
her once, Robin?" she asked, in a queer, unnatural voice.
"I never loved but once," answered that perfect courtier.
"Yet you married her--men say it was a love marriage. It was a
marriage, anyway, and you can speak so calmly of her death?" Her
tone was brooding. She sought understanding that should silence
her own lingering doubt of him.
"Where lies the blame? Who made me what I am?" Again his bold arm
encompassed her. Side by side they peered down through the gloom
at the rushing waters, and he seized an image from them. "Our
love is like that seething tide," he said. "To resist it is to
labour in agony awhile, and then to perish."
"And to yield is to be swept away."
"To happiness," he cried, and reverted to his earlier prayer.
"Say that when . . . that afterwards, I may claim you for my own.
Be true to yourself, obey the voice of instinct, and so win to
happiness."
She looked up at him, seeking to scan the handsome face in that
dim light that baffled her, and he observed the tumultuous heave
of her white breast.
"Can I trust thee, Robin? Can I trust thee? Answer me true!" she
implored him, adorably weak, entirely woman now.
"What does your own heart answer you?" quoth he, loaning close
above her.
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