She listens with gentle respect to his proposed journey, that seems definitely settled, and replies in a grave, steady tone, not devoid of interest, "that it will no doubt be very pleasant for him." Objecting or pleading to accompany him does not really enter her mind.
"What will it be for you?" he asks, in a manner that would be savage were his breeding less perfect.
Ah, she dare not say! People live through miserable times, sorrow does not kill them!
He is chagrined, disappointed at her silence. It is unnatural for her to be so calm. She may even be glad—monstrous thought! His impatience and resentment are roused.
"Violet," he begins, with a certain asperity, "there occasionally comes a time in life, married life, when the mistake one has made is realized in its full force. That we have made a mistake becomes more apparent as time goes by. If I could give you back your liberty"—and his voice softens unconsciously—"God knows I would gladly do it. I could not see how events would shape themselves when I took it from you, and your father during his illness——"
Her calmness breaks. She throws up her hand in pitiful entreaty, her old gesture to shelter herself in time of trouble. She cannot have her father indirectly censured, she cannot listen to that humiliating episode from his lips. If she understood him better she would know the almost brutal frankness, a kind of family usage, is not one of his faults.
"Oh," she cries, in anguish, "I know! I know! You were very good, you were generous. I know now it was not as most people marry, and that you could not love me, that you did it to save me, but almost, I think, it would have been better——" for Jasper Wilmarth to have taken me, she is on the point of saying, but she ends with a strong, convulsive shudder.
Who has been so cruel and dastardly as to tell her this? Ah! he guesses wildly.
"This is Eugene's tale!" he cries, angrily, his face in the white heat of passion. "He shall answer to me as surely as there is a heaven!" and he springs up.
Her arms are round him in their frantic endeavor to drag him back, her face is pressed against his breast, her silken hair blinds his very eyes.