“Yes? And what does my miserable soul count for against her starved and broken life?”
“I don’t know. That is for you to say.”
“I say that if virtue is to give a reward to vice, life is a nightmare.” Perior again put his hands over his eyes. The thought of poor Mary, conscious of injustice, the sight of Camelia writhing in retributory flames, made him feel shattered.
“But I didn’t come to talk about my problematic soul,” said Camelia in an altered voice; “I came to tell you about Mary.” She approached him, and stood over him as she spoke, so that he looked up quickly.
“She will probably be dead in a month. She knows it; and, Michael, she loves you.” Perior flushed a deep red, but Camelia whitened to the lips. He would have risen; she put her hand on his shoulder.
“Impossible!” he said.
“No, listen. She told me. She lashed me with it this morning—that hopeless love—for she thinks that you love me—thinks that I am playing with you. She loves you. She has loved you for years.”
“Don’t say it, Camelia!” Perior cried brokenly. “Mary’s disease explains hysteria—melancholia—a pitiful fancy—that will pass—that should never have been told to me.”
“Ah, don’t shirk it!” her hand pressed heavily on his shoulder. “Her disease made her tell me, I grant you, but you could not have doubted had you heard her!—as I did! You understand that she must never know—that I have told you.”
“I understand that, necessarily, and I must ask you from what motive you think your revelation justified; it must be a strong one, for I confess that the revelation seems to me unjustifiable—cruelly so.”