You tell me," stooping close to her, "that I am
nothing to you: you believe it, poor child! There is not a line
on your face that does not prove it false. I have keen eyes,
Margret!"-- He laughed.--"You have wrung this love out of your
heart? If it were easy to do, did it need to wring with it every
sparkle of pleasure and grace out of your life! Your very hair
is gathered out of your sight: you feared to remember how my hand
had touched it? Your dress is stingy and hard; your step, your
eyes, your mouth under rule. So hard it was to force yourself
into an old worn-out woman! Oh, Margret! Margret!"
She moaned under her breath.
"I notice trifles, child! Yonder, in that corner, used to stand
the desk where I helped you with your Latin. How you hated it!
Do you remember?"
"I remember."
"It always stood there: it is gone now. Outside of the gate
there was that elm I planted, and you promised to water while I
was gone. It is cut down now by the roots."
"I had it done, Stephen."
"I know. Do you know why? Because you love me: because you do
not dare to think of me, you dare not trust yourself to look at
the tree that I had planted."
She started up with a cry, and stood there in the old way, her
fingers catching at each other.
"It is cruel,--let me go!"
"It is not cruel."--He came up closer to her.--"You think you do
not love me, and see what I have made you! Look at the torpor of
this face,--the dead, frozen eyes! It is a `nightmare death in
life.
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