“Is this why you wished to know what I would do if you deceived me?” he asked, with the bitterest reproach in eyes and voice.
“No. For I hadn’t deceived you,” I answered. “I haven’t deceived you now. If you loved me, you’d believe me, Raoul.”
I put out my hand and took his. He gave mine no pressure, but he let me draw him into the house.
“For God’s sake, give me back my faith in you, if you can,” he said. “It’s death to lose it. I came here wanting to die.”
“After you’d killed me, as you said?”
“Perhaps. I couldn’t keep away. I had to come. If you have any explanation, for the love of Heaven, tell me what it is.”
“You know me, and you know Godensky—yet you need an explanation of anything evil said of me by him?” In this way I hoped to disarm Raoul; but he had been half-mad, I think, and was scarcely sane now, such a power had jealousy over his better self.
“Don’t play with me!” he exclaimed. “I can’t bear it. You sent me away. Yet you had an appointment with Godensky. You took him into your carriage; and now—”
“Marianne was in the carriage. If I could have had you with me, I should have packed her off by herself, alone, that I—might be alone with you. Oh, Raoul, it isn’t possible you believe that I could lie to you for Godensky’s sake—a man like that! If I’d cared for him, why shouldn’t I have accepted him instead of you? Could I have changed so quickly, do you think?”
“I don’t think; I’m not able to think. I can only feel,” he answered.