If you had one thought of tenderness for me, you could not speak
them."
A flush passed over her face.
"Do not think me without feeling--without sympathy--pity--"
"These are not love."
She was silent; they were, in a sense, nearer to love than any emotion
she had ever known.
"If you loved me," he pursued passionately--"ah, God! the very word from
me to you sounds insult; and yet there is not one thought in me that
does not honor you--if you loved me, could you stand there and bid me
drag on this life forever; nameless, friendless, hopeless; having all
the bitterness, but none of the torpor of death; wearing out the doom of
a galley slave, though guiltless of all crime?"
"Why speak so? You are unreasoning. A moment ago you implored me not to
tempt you to the violation of what you hold your honor; because I bid
you be faithful to it, you deem me cruel!"
"Heaven help me! I scarce know what I say. I ask you, if you were a
woman who loved me, could you decide thus?"
"These are wild questions," she murmured; "what can they serve? I
believe that I should--I am sure that I should. As it is--as your
friend--"
"Ah, hush! Friendship is crueler than hate."
"Cruel?"
"Yes; the worst cruelty when we seek love--a stone proffered us when we
ask for bread in famine!"
There was desperation, almost ferocity, in the answer; she was moved
and shaken by it--not to fear, for fear was not in her nature, but to
something of awe, and something of the despairing hopelessness that was
in him.
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