“Listen to me, Michael. I mustn’t expect you to feel it yet as I do—must I? That would be impossible. I only ask you to think. You see the pathos, the beauty of Mary’s love for you! for years—growing in her narrow life. Think how a smile from you must have warmed her heart—a look, a little kindness. She adores you. And this consciousness of death, this nearing parting from you—you who do not care—leaving even the dear sight of you. Think of her going out alone, unloved, into the darkness—the everlasting darkness and silence—with never one word, one touch, one smile, to hold in her heart as hers, meant for her, with love. Oh, I see it hurts you!—you are sorry; oh, blessed tears! You cannot bear it, can you? Michael, you will not let her go uncomforted? She is not strong, or brave, or confident. She is sick, weak, terrified—a screaming, shuddering child carried away in the night. Michael!”—it was a cry; she clasped his hands in hers—“you will walk beside her. You will kiss her, love her, and she will die happy—with her hand in yours!” Her eyes sought his wildly. He had never loved her as he loved her now, and though his tears were for Mary, the power, the freedom of his love for Camelia was a joy to him even in the midst of a great sadness. He could not have kissed her or put his arms around her; the dignity of her abasement was part of the new, the sacred loveliness, and it was more in pity than in love that he took the poor, distraught, beautiful face between his hands and looked at her a negation, pitiful and inarticulate. She closed her eyes. He saw that she would not accept the bitterness.
“I will do all I can,” he then said; “but, dear Camelia, dearest Camelia, I cannot marry her.”
It was a strange echo. Camelia drew away from him.
“What can you do? She knows you are her friend; that only hurts.”
“Does it?” He saw now, through the unconscious revelation, the greatness of her love for him, and saw that in the past he had not understood. She loved him so much that there was left her not a thought of self. Her whole nature was merged in the passionate wish that he should fulfil her highest ideal of him. He saw that she would have laid down her life for him—or for Mary, as she stood there, and, for Mary, she expected an equal willingness on his side.
“It would only be an agony to her,” Camelia said; “she would fear every moment that she would betray herself to you, as she betrayed herself to me. Can’t you see that? Understand that?” Desperately she reiterated: “You must pretend! You must lie! You must tell her that you love her! You must marry her, take her away to some beautiful country—there are places where they live for years; make a paradise about her. You must.” She looked sternly at him.
“No, Camelia, no.”
“You mean that basest no?” She was trembling, holding herself erect as she confronted him; her white face, narrowly framed by the curves of loosened hair, tragic with its look of reprobation.
“I mean it. I will not. You will see that I am right. It would be a cruel folly, a dastardly kindness, a final insult from fate. And I do not think only of Mary—I think of myself; I could not lie like that.”
Her silent woe and scorn, frozen now to a bleak despair, dwelt on him for a long moment, then, without another word, she turned from him and left him, making, by the majesty of her defeated wrong, his victorious right look ugly.