Page:Burton Stevenson--The marathon mystery.djvu/183

Rh for from the first moment I saw you, and which I am going to make come true. Together, we will conquer the world. As my wife”

“Your wife?” There was scorn, anger, fear in the words, and in the glance she cast at him.

“Certainly—my wife,” he repeated, with emphasis. “If I should prove to you”

She stopped him by an imperative gesture.

“You go too far,” she said. “There is a limit to what even I will endure. Do not push me too far; do not rely too much upon my forbearance. A man capable of any crime”

He held her by the motion of a finger.

“Is a man who appeals to you,” he concluded. “To be capable of any crime, and yet to commit none, is a virtue”

“To commit none!” she echoed scornfully.

He looked at her without the flicker of a lash.

“To commit none, yes—your own conscience acquits me,” he repeated steadily. “But I would pause at none to gain possession of you. Look at me—do you doubt it?”

She looked at him with a little shiver.

“No,” she said.

“Is there any other man you know who can say as much?”

She wrested her eyes away from his and turned again to the fire.

“You strangely mistake me,” she said in a cold voice. “You are reading your own nature into me. I would ask no man to commit a crime for my sake—I should abhor the man who did.”