He felt as if the
struggle would kill him. He had but to betray his brother, and he would
be unchained from his torture; he had but to break his word, and he
would be at liberty. All the temptation that had before beset him paled
and grew as naught beside this possibility of the possession of her love
which dawned upon him now.
She, knowing nothing of this which moved him, believed only that he
weighed her words in hesitation, and strove to turn the balance.
"Hear me," she said softly. "I do not bid you decide; I only bid you
confide in Philip--in one who, as you must well remember, would sooner
cut off his own hand than counsel a base thing or do an unfaithful
act. You are guiltless of this charge under which you left England; you
endure it rather than do what you deem dishonorable to clear yourself.
That is noble--that is great. But it is possible, as I say, that you
may exaggerate the abnegation required of you. Whoever was the criminal
should suffer. Yours is magnificent magnanimity; but it may surely be
also false justice alike to yourself and the world."
He turned on her almost fiercely in the suffering she dealt him.
"It is! It was a madness--a Quixotism--the wild, unconsidered act of
a fool. What you will! But it is done; it was done forever--so long
ago--when your young eyes looked on me in the pity of your innocent
childhood. I cannot redeem its folly now by adding to it baseness. I
cannot change the choice of a madman by repenting of it with a coward's
caprice.
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