"You should spare me, Mr. Gilmore. You remember what I told you. I loved my cousin Walter entirely. I did not hide it from you. I begged you to leave me because it was so. I told you that my heart would not change. When I said so, I thought that you would—desist."
"I am to be punished, then, for having been too true to you?"
"I will not defend myself for accepting you at last. But you must remember that when I did so I said that I should go—back—to him, if he could take me."
"And you are going back to him?"
"If he will have me."
"You can stand there and look me in the face and tell me that you are false as that! You can confess to me that you will change like a weathercock;—be his one day, and then mine, and his again the next! You can own that you give yourself about first to one man, and then to another, just as may suit you at the moment! I would not have believed it of any woman. When you tell it me of yourself, I begin to think that I have been wrong all through in my ideas of a woman's character."
The time had now come in which she must indeed speak up. And speech seemed to be easier with her now that he had allowed himself to express his anger. He had expressed more than his anger. He had dared to shower his scorn upon her, and the pelting of the storm gave her courage. "You are unjust upon me, Mr. Gilmore,—unjust and cruel. You know in your heart that I have not changed."
"Were you not betrothed to me?"
"I was;—but in what way? Have I told you any untruth? Have I concealed anything? When I accepted you, did I not explain to you how and why it was so,—against my own wish, against my own judgment,—because then I had ceased to care what became of me. I do care now. I care very much."
"And you think that is justice to me?"