"Oh, didn't I think you loved me truly!"
Lost her! He knows it. He feels it. There is something in her simple, plaintive exclamations, in her "I couldn't, couldn't, dear," in her abandonment to belief that he cannot love her—there is some damned, numbing essence in it that emanates as it were from her spirit and thus informs him; and thus informing him, numbs and dumbs his own. Lost her! And cannot combat it. Lost her! And has no words, no help. Fury beginning in him. Fury at his impotence mounting within him. Return to life! By God, by God, to lose it!
"Essie, will you let me go, then? Now? For ever? You can't. All our love? All our happiness we're going to have?"
"Oh, didn't I think you loved me truly!"
Fury within him. That maddening iteration of her maddening cry! He can scarcely retain his fury. He chokes it back. He is hoarse as he grinds out words. "Think of us in a little house like we've planned."
"I couldn't, dear, I couldn't!"
"Think how we'll have everything we want!"
"Oh, I can't bear to hear you tempting me!"
Fury in a storm breaks out of him. "Oh!" he cries and makes a savage action with his arms that thrusts her from him. "Oh, for God Almighty's sake, don't drag the Bible into it!"
She says: "Arthur!"