"Don't you love me at all? Don't you mind leaving me at all?"
His astonishment was so great that for a moment it bereft him of words. He had risen and was holding her; her eyes were closed and she sobbed and sobbed, her head fallen back. And her passion of sorrow and despair, her loveliness, too, and youth, seized and shook him; so that all the things he had not felt yet, all the hovering, dreadful things, the dark forms of the cavern, encompassed, pressed upon him; despair and longing, the horror of annihilation, the agonising sweetness of life. It was as if a hidden wound had been opened and that his blood was gushing forth, not to peace, but to pain and torment. He felt his own sobs rising; she cared; how much she cared. It was as if her caring gave him back the self that yesterday had blotted out; in her pain he knew his own; in her self he saw and mourned his own doomed and piteous self. His head leaned to hers and his lips sought hers, when, suddenly, a furious memory came, and indignation suffocated him.
He thrust her violently away, holding her by the shoulders. "How dare you! how dare you!" he cried. "You don't love me. You don't mind my dying. How dare you torture me like this—when it's not real,—when I was at peace."
It was like a wild, impossible dream. Their faces stared at each other; their hands seized each other; they spoke, their voices clashing, and shaken by strangling sobs.
"How dare you say that to me! You have broken my heart! You haven't cared for years—for years!" Kitty cried. "I've longed—longed. It is too horrible. How dare you come and tell me that you are going to die and that it will make me a little sad. Oh! I love you—and you are horrible to me."
"You are lying, Kitty—you are lying!"
"That too! You can say that! To me! To me!"
"It's true. You know you lie. I haven't loved you as I did. But I've cared—good God! I see now how much.—It is you who have ceased to care."
At these words Kitty was transfigured. Joy, joy unmistakable, flamed up in her. It mounted to her eyes and lips, revivifying her ravaged face, beaming forth, inundating him, unfaltering, assured, absolute. "Darling—darling—you love me? you do love me?—Oh, you shan't die—I won't let you die. My love will keep you with me. We will forget all these years when we haven't understood—when we've forgotten. We will forget everything—except that we love each other and that that is all there is to live for in the world."
"And—Sir Walter?—" he said, simply and helplessly.