He had imagined—he had prepared for—everything that she might say: fears, tears, doubts, protests—he had rehearsed his part, his fond endearments, his dear cajoleries, against them all. He was utterly unprepared for her answer, for the gentle puzzlement in her eyes that went with it, for the Sunday-school awe in her voice with which she spoke it.
"What, live in sin?" said Essie.
He was prepared for, he had rehearsed, every way this telling of her might go. Across any difficulties of it he had stepped to the utter conviction of her that, howsoever it went, would radiantly end it, he knew. He was utterly unprepared for this her first contribution to it, for each and all with which she followed it, for the sudden fear, and then the quickly mounting fear, and then the knowledge, that she was lost to him—that the game was up, the thing done, the plans shattered, the future irrevocably destroyed: he was most unprepared of all, as the knowledge came and grew and burned within him, for the fury that began to fill him at his loss, the fury and the hate that finally he broke upon her. And God, God, how vilely quickly the thing was projected, was fought, was done! In one minute, as it seemed to him, they were lovingly trifling their plans of Whitehouse; in the next, those very plans had swept him to the telling; in the next, return to life was crushed like ashes in his mouth, and his fury and hate were out and raging; in the next, they were back returning on the cliffs, a blustering wind got up, rain again streaming.
Look how it went. Consider the quickness of it.
"What, live in sin?"
He caught her to him. "Live together, live together, Essie—always. Don't talk about sin."
"How could I? Oh, how ever could I?"
"Together, together, Essie! Think of us together in a little house of our own just like this. Think of you looking after me, and of me looking after my sweet, my dear, my darling!"
"How could I, dear? How could I?"
"Trust me—trust me! Ah, those tears in my darling's darling eyes! Look how I kiss them away and hold her in my arms and always hold her."