"You know. We must not love each other. We must undo to-day and forget
it."
"If you can talk so lightly of forgetting, you have little to remember,"
answered Orsino almost roughly.
"You have no right to say that."
"I have the right of a man who loves you."
"The right to be unjust?"
"I am not unjust." His tone softened again. "I know what it means, to
say that I love you--it is my life, this love. I have known it a long
time. It has been on my lips to say it for weeks, and since it has been
said, it cannot be unsaid. A moment ago you told me not to doubt you. I
do not. And now you say that we must not love each other, as though we
had a choice to make--and why? Because you once made a rash promise--"
"Hush!" interrupted Maria Consuelo. "You must not--"
"I must and will. You made a promise, as though you had a right at such
a moment to dispose of all your life--I do not speak of mine--as though
you could know what the world held for you, and could renounce it all
beforehand. I tell you you had no right to make such an oath, and a vow
taken without the right to take it is no vow at all--"
"It is--it is! I cannot break it!"
"If you love me you will.
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