“What! Madam,” he said, in a quick, whispering voice; “do you pretend to deem me capable of that baseness?”
He gripped her hand suddenly, so as to make her wince; then flung it from him.
“I scorn you not for your act,” he cried, “but for your cowardice in striving to make me its scapegoat.”
He stepped back in great emotion; and she herself was agitated only a little less. Her young breast rose and fell in hard pantings: the force of her self-control revealed itself in this sudden struggle for breath: and in the end her passion mastered her. She turned a face of lovely fury on him.
“You, Monsieur! the scapegoat?—so wronged and misunderstood?—the poor innocent bearer of other people’s sins? Tell me, are you not that man who came and offered his services—O, God! the slander of that word!—to a soul most wounded in her faith, and therefore, as he thought, most susceptible to the sweet druggings of dishonour? Are you not that man who would have had me break my vows, stultify all that tragedy of renunciation, on the strength of a wicked sophistry? A noble friend to Honour—that man, who, baffled in his devil’s purpose, must revenge himself by instigating another to desecrate the shrine he could not force himself! A friend—”
He put out his hand, and touched her once more—quite gently this time. But there was some quality in the touch the very antithesis of that which had impelled his former violence. The girl faltered under it, and her speech shivered into silence.
“You are mistaken, Madam.” He measured out his words with a soft and painful accuracy. “If I proposed to commit you to what convention styles dishonour (forgive me for using the word once more) it was in order to save from worse defilement that very shrine at which I worshipped.”
She started, and flushed.
“Monsieur!”
“Nay, hear me out,” he said, in the same quiet tones. “Even the first of Tabernacles is not soiled in the poor sinner’s worship. My heart has always held your image, Madam, the loveliest of its possessions—and not the less because it cherishes a hopeless dream. I would have served that dream loyally for love’s sake: I would have given my life and soul to keep it pure. If I thought to persuade it to fly to its natural sanctuary, there was a priority in vows to vindicate my daring. Have you ever considered, Madam, how you broke one oath to love to swear another to dishonour?”