At his next call he found me upset over the elopement of the husband of a favourite cousin. Those horrid headlines in the paper referred to someone I actually knew! It was a relief to discuss it with a friend. This talk led to a discussion of kindred topics. Afterward, as I tried to recall our conversation, it seemed to me it had been on a particularly lofty plane. I could seem to remember nothing which led up to what happened. I remember that the large willow rockers in which we sat got gradually nearer, and that the first I knew he was holding my hands and looking in my eyes, and I was permitting it with less and less resistance, a dangerous fascination, a kind of paralysis stealing over me that held me spellbound. He was talking, talking breathlessly, ardently, on his knees by my chair. I think he wept over my hand and put his head in my lap; and there I sat like one dazed—conscious of all he said, but only half able to reason, and, for a time, seemingly, wholly incapable of stemming the tide of his passionate outburst. I seemed to live ages in what must have been only a few minutes. Presently I roused myself and then, like one in pain on awakening, felt wounded to the very soul—a stain was forever on my womanhood—a married man had confessed his love for me! Suddenly I saw what in my blindness and ignorance I had only vaguely divined in the weeks previous—all, all had been leading up to this.
A deadly faintness came over me. I fell back in my chair, conscious still, cruelly conscious, but passive, limp, and mute. He must have taken this for acquiescence, for he kissed me—on the cheek, near the neck. It burned me, and aroused me. I sat up, passive no longer.
What I said I do not know, but he felt my anger and shrank from it. I almost tore the spot from my face in the vehemence with which I tried to eradicate that burning kiss. That angered him to the point of fury, and my words enraged him more. While I had been in that passive state, and he was covering my hands with kisses, he had said he would wait years for me, if need be, if I would only tell him that I would love him when he was free. On finding my tongue, I bitterly denounced him for that; told him if he were free I would not marry him; that I could never love him; and by then I must have experienced a marked revulsion of feeling, for I loathed him.
Growing fairly black with rage, he became threatening; accused me of leading him on, or at least of permitting his love, only to thrust it back upon him. He took me by the shoulders roughly, looking into my face with rage and hatred. I looked steadily back. I had a vague realization of his great strength, and of his fiendish temper when aroused, but was at that instant beyond physical fear; my desperation at what I then felt was an ineradicable stain upon my soul was so extreme that mere danger to life was as nothing. I must have met him unflinchingly; I think I even said, “Kill me if you like!” Then a terrible remorse came upon me. Suddenly I seemed to feel wholly to blame, and with that began to soften towards him; he softened then, and wept. One thing he said then pierced me to the heart:
“Why did you do it, Doctor? Why did you let me love you—life was hard enough before—why did you do it?” And as he talked that way my agony grew apace. I believed myself guilty—responsible for it all; I believed (what I knew later was not true) that I must have seen it all from the beginning—my consent to his calls, our handclasps at parting, were blackest evidence of the steps I had permitted to lead up to this.
My remorse and misery changed his attitude entirely; he then began accusing himself. Presently we fell to discussing it more calmly. But at the recollection of my scornful words, the fire leaped in his eyes, and a malicious purpose again plainly showed itself:
“You could never love me if I were ‘the last man on earth’—you—girl! You don’t know what you are saying. Do you want to rouse the very devil in me? Don’t you know that if I were free, free to make you love me, you would be mine—mine! I’d make you take back those words—I’ve a mind to make you take them back—I’ve a mind to make you love me now!”
He was sitting or kneeling beside me, his face close to mine. I looked in his eyes, and the very devil of daring and adventure must have been in me at that instant, for I was fully conscious of a challenge passing into my look. I think I said no word, but fairly defied him to make me love him—if he could. He fixed my glance imperiously, and with his face close to mine he hissed:
“Kiss me—on the lips—kiss me! You don’t dare to—you’re afraid!”
His lips came closer, his eyes flamed. I had a wild desire to do as he commanded—not because I wanted to kiss him, for I hated him again—such rapid revulsions of feeling swept over me—but just to prove to him that his words were false—that I dared to kiss him and still would not love him as he boasted. I had a curiosity also, a real desire to know if there could possibly be such potency in a kiss. But the instant of wavering could not have been long. At that crucial moment my guardian angel (surely I had a guardian angel than) turned my eyes from his compelling gaze to the top of the book-case by the wall where stood the photographs of my father and mother. Instantly the spell was broken. The power he had regained over me, after my first repulsion had subsided, was dispelled by the sight of my parents’ faces looking down at me. But oh, the agony then! The remorse I had felt earlier was as nothing compared to this. I cannot recall clearly what followed. I know my defiance of him gave place to self-loathing and self-castigation. It must have been shortly after that a profound prostration supervened—the conflicting emotions were having their effect upon my physical self. My pallor must have been extreme for he became alarmed; he called to me; he chafed my hands, and pleaded with me to rally, to speak, to live. I heard it all and knew all—was never more aware in my life—but was powerless to stir, almost, it seemed, to breathe. Finally, the faintness wearing away, I was again in possession of all my faculties, but, oh, so cold, so cold! and with the consciousness of an ineradicable stain on my soul.