"Shall I then?" he asked with a warm smile and drawing close to her.
"Shall I? Then it can only be by your recommendation. Ah, my dear, my
beautiful dear one," he hastened to add, "my life is possible
henceforward only through you. You have taught me by your life and
person, by your beauty and truth, by your nobility of mind and character
how life should be lived. I have not always deserved your good opinion
nor that of others. I have fought duels and killed men; I have aspired
to place; I have connived at appointment; I have been vain, overbearing
and insistent on my rights or privileges; I have played the dictator here
in Jamaica; I have not been satisfied save to get my own way; but you
have altered all that. Your coming here has given me a new outlook.
Sheila, you have changed me, and you can change me infinitely more.
I who have been a master wish to become your slave. I want you--beloved,
I want you for my wife."
He reached out as though to take her hand, but she drew back from him.
His thrilling words had touched her, as she had seldom been touched, as
she had never been touched by any one save the man that must never be
hers; she was submerged for the moment in the flood of his eloquence, and
his yielding to her on the point of Dyck's imprisonment gave fresh accent
to his words.
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