"Do not speak to me harshly to-night, dear," she said; "this day six months we were married."
He winced as he heard this, as if the remembrance brought with it a sense of physical pain, and said:--
"It is right that you should reproach me, yet it is bitter enough for me without that."
"I do not say it to reproach you, dear,--indeed, indeed, I do not!"
"That makes it all the more bitter. This day six months we were married, you say! Better for you, better for me, that we had never seen each other."
"Yes," the girl said, sadly; "perhaps it would have been. But there is no misery to me in the remembrance. I can still bless the day when we first met. Oh, Richard, do not give me cause to curse it!"
"You have cause enough for that every day, every hour," he replied; "to curse the day, and to curse me. You had the promise of a happy future before you saw me, and I have blighted it. What had you done that I should force this misery upon you? What had you done that I should bring you into contact with this?" he looked loathingly upon the bare walls. "And I am even too small-hearted to render you the only reparation in my power--to die, and loose you from a tie which has embittered your existence!"
"Hush, Richard!" she said. "Hush! my dear! All may yet be well, if you have but the courage--"
"But I have not the courage," he interrupted. "I am beaten down, crushed, nerveless. I was brought up with no teaching that existence was a thing to struggle for, and I am too old or too idle to learn the lesson now. What do such men as I in the world? Why, it has been thrown in my teeth this very night that I haven't even soul enough for revenge."
"Revenge, Richard!" she cried. "Not upon--"