"I shall pray God that he may!" she added.

"You deserve it as no man deserved it yet!" For a moment I stood stricken, indeed, by her words.

Then, my reason grasping the motive of that fierceness, a sudden joy pervaded me.

It was a fierceness breathing that hatred that is a part of love, than which, it is true, no hatred can be more deadly.

And yet so eloquently did it tell me of those very feelings which she sought jealously to conceal, that, moved by a sudden impulse, I stepped close up to her.
"Roxalanne," I said fervently, "you do not hope for it.