He opened the door, sprang out of the car and stood before it. “Go on,” he said in a hoarse voice. “Drive over me.”
She reversed and drove back a few yards. “Come, we must go farther. I’ll take you at least to the frontier. Where do you want to go?”
“Back,” he said through his teeth, “back with you.”
“With me you can’t either go back or go forward. Don’t you understand? I must do this to see, to be certain that I love you. Do you think that I could hear what you told me again? You can’t go back; you would either have to give up . . . what you don’t want to give up and mustn’t, or they’d take you away, and I” She let her hands fall into her lap. “You see, I’ve thought of what it would mean if I were to go on with you. I should be able to, I should certainly be able to, but . . . you’ve got a fiancée somewhere—go to her. Do you know it never occurred to me to ask you about her. When one’s a princess one thinks that one’s alone in the world. Do you love her?”
He looked at her with eyes which were full of torture; yet he couldn’t deny
“There you are,” she breathed. “You darling, you simply cannot lie! But listen. When I considered— What was I to you? What was it that I did? Did you think of her when you were in love with me? How you must have hated me! No, say nothing! Don’t take away from me the strength to say these last words.”
She wrung her hands. “I loved you! I loved you, man, as much as I could ever love anybody—
