Page:In the name of a woman (1900).djvu/267

 "Christina!" The name slipped in protest from my lips before I thought, and I feared she would resent it; and I felt her hand start.

"That is the hardest plea of all you have used," she said softly, with a smile of rare sweetness. "Christina is powerless to resist you, but the Princess must decide this. Do not use that plea again."

"I must—I cannot lose you," I cried desperately, "I love you so."

"Don't, please, please don't. If I dared to think of myself there would be no gladlier fugitive under Heaven's bright sky than Christina. There, I have bared my heart to you, as I never thought to open it. And by the love I know you have for me, and by the love that answers it in my heart, I entreat you help me to be strong enough to resist you. Let us never have to think that we placed our love before our duty—however hard and stern. Lend me your man's strength; I need it so sorely." And with a little piteous action of entreaty she placed her other hand on mine, and gazed full into my eyes.

I stood fighting down my wildly roused passion, trembling under its stress like a child, till I conquered it.

"It shall be as you wish," I said at length. "We will stay and face this together. But you must not ask me again to desert you."

"There is a higher happiness than is bounded by our own wishes only," she whispered.

"I can know no sorrow deeper than my loss of you. But it shall be as my Princess desires;" and I bent and kissed her hands again.

"The sorrow should be the lighter if divided," she whispered, with a tender reproach for the selfishness of my words.