It was the simple persistence of a simple swain.
"Oh, you don't know, you don't know. It's impossible!"
"Impossible!" Hare's anger flared up. "You let me believe I had won you.
What kind of a girl are you? You were not true. Your actions were
lies."
"Not lies," she faltered, and turned her face from him.
With no gentle hand he grasped her arm and forced her to look at him.
But the misery in her eyes overcame him, and he roughly threw his arms
around her and held her close.
"It can't be a lie. You do care for me--love me. Look at me." He drew
her head back from his breast. Her face was pale and drawn; her eyes
closed tight, with tears forcing a way out under the long lashes; her
lips were parted. He bowed to their sweet nearness; he kissed them again
and again, while the shade of the cedars seemed to whirl about him. "I
love you, Mescal. You are mine--I will have you--I will keep you--I will
not let him have you!"
She vibrated to that like a keen strung wire under a strong touch. All
in a flash the trembling, shame-stricken girl was transformed. She
leaned back in his arms, supple, pliant with quivering life, and for the
first time gave him wide-open level eyes, in which there were now no
tears, no shyness, no fear, but a dark smouldering fire.
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