past i have spun this of lies for your sake yet i cannot go on in this way oh i have been all these months trusting in your honour believing in your good faith believing that your word was your bond can it be possible that now after all my blind faith and belief in you that you can deny me the satisfaction which your honour owes to mine you put it very he said with a restrained air i have been � but you must have known she burst out yes i have been expecting some such scene as this believe me my dear margaret that you are far happier as than you could possibly be as the princess believe me that there is nothing to gain by all that is if you decide to allow things to remain as they are i swear to you on my most sacred word of honour given to you not as prince but as your husband that i will never as long as i am alive desert you but while i am ready to give everything i expect something in return and if it is a sacrifice for you � though having no children i hardly see how it can be � to continue this life at least for the present then it is a sacrifice which i demand of your love then said she it is a sacrifice which i will never make i trusted you i believed in you i loved you � how i have loved you perhaps you will never be able to understand but to a woman of my position in england it is not a light thing to do what i have done by way of proving my love for you i told you that i would bear this life for two years i trusted to your honour that you would fulfil your promises a woman to me when the end of the two years came if you love me which of late i have somewhat doubted you will be only too glad either to fulfil your promise or to give me some good and sufficient reason why you are not able to do so � though after what has passed i should expect more substantial proof than your mere word if you are not prepared to carry out your original promises we will part at once as the last words fell from her lips he half rose in his chair his face livid his lips trembling his whole person of intense passion you cannot mean that he burst out i not only can but i most assuredly do no not another step nearer to me i have listened before to your of love and i know exactly what they are worth i believe she said suddenly that you cannot take me to you are going to the ball to night then do not return here let me have the night to think it over to think over all that you have told me to get used to the blow which you have dealt me please not another word he sprang up from his chair and barred her way as she was about to leave the room margaret he said you cannot mean it you cannot really mean that you would that you could after all we have been to each other cast me adrift that you could bring yourself to leave me yes she said looking at him with flaming eyes that it is to be all over you have your alternative he fell back why should you mind she went on scornfully you have not been the same to me of late you know that you have changed visibly i have felt it for months past why then try to drag on a love that is dying if not already dead it is not dead he cried with a burst of passion i been i admit it i own it but it has been the difference of fear not of weariness or of change i have been afraid for months past that this question would rise between us don t you understand cannot you see that i nothing to be altered margaret won t you believe that if i could take you to to morrow and � h a gleam of light present you to my imperial master as my most loved and honoured wife i would do so my god how gladly how proudly how but i no more than any other man in this world can accomplish the impossible that is all that my altered manner has been it has been the alteration of any alteration or change not the change of dying love i love you as i have never loved any other woman in my life as i shall never love any other woman to my dying day for you i would sacrifice everything for your sake i have lived this quiet retired life so different to my own solely and for no other reason than to save your good name don t throw me aside without thought don t throw away a love that is greater than any love that could be offered to you in all the world don t wreck my whole life for the sake of a mere form for the sake of a merely official position oh margaret think what you are about to do think what you are about to throw away but said she is it impossible that you can our marriage at it is quite impossible he replied then said she i will think it over do not come to me for three days remember for me it is a question of cutting myself adrift for ever from everything that has constituted my life heretofore up to this day i have believed myself to be secure in your protection i have believed in you although mind i saw the difference in you 