He withdrew a step, and exclaimed: "Lucy, why will you not speak to me? Why will you not look at me? You know that all this is done in the holy name of love, and God who knows me knows that I would not cause you a pang, that your beautiful eyes should not be shadowed by a tear drawn by any action of mine if I could have believed that loving me as I know you do, that loving you as you[Pg 282] know I do, you would have come to me at the summons of my passion, and hand in hand with me as my wife, taken your chance of all that might have followed.",
"Miss Acton—Lucy—my Lucy: for my Lucy you have ever been in my heart since the day when I asked you to be my wife, and you know—but you must believe—that my adoration of you then has not waned by a single ray of its brilliance—nay, the flame is greater and purer and more glowing than it was in that hour in which you refused my hand, not because you could not love me, nor because you believed the half of what had been told you about me, but because I was in too great a hurry. I had not given you time to find me out and love me as I believe, as I am sure you now do. Oh, my Lucy, this act of seeming treason against you will be forgiven. Your heart will acknowledge[Pg 250] that violent as might seem the step I have taken, by no other could we have been brought together, and all the artifices and all the falsehoods I have been guilty of were, you will come to believe, the inspiration of such a love as few men ever felt for the women of their worship.",
"But Bill," urged Jim, "the oil they've found there'll make you rich.".
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