"Tell me, then—tell me again! It is so long since I have had a happy thought! I will not be put off so! Now that you are here, in this room, with my hand in yours, I will not let you go! Tell me, Norton—oh, tell me why it is that you have changed so completely? This question haunts me. I dream of it in the night; I think of it all day long. Answer me. Though the truth cleave my heart, I would rather hear it! Why have you ceased to love me? Why is it that you can leave me so?"
"Rachael, I will answer you so far as this: I have not ceased to love you."
The woman uttered a cry, and fell down upon her knees at her husband's feet, in a storm of wild and happy tears. He raised her up, bent forward as if to kiss her, but drew back with a heavy sigh. She felt him recoil, and the shudder which chilled him reached her also.
"You love me, and yet shrink from my touch! Ah, me! what has dug this gulf between us?"
"It is the work of our own hands," he said, with strong emotion. "It is your curse and mine that we must love each other, Rachael—love each other, and yet be apart."
"Apart! Oh! will there be no end—no season—"
"Yes, Rachael, when we can both repent that we ever did love each other. Then, perhaps, a merciful God may forgive us the great sin which has been our happiness and our torment."
"But you love me? You do love me?"
"A thousand times better than my own miserable life!"
"And you speak of torment! Who shall ever dare say that word again to Rachael Closs? When they do, I will answer, 'He loves me! he loves me!'"