“There is one other alternative, Loo, which you have forgotten.”
“What is it?”
“Can you not forgive me?” said he, almost sobbing as he spoke.
“I cannot,—I cannot,” said she. “You ask me for more than any human heart could yield. All that the world can heap upon me of contempt would be as nothing to what I should feel for myself if I stooped to that. No, no; follow out your vengeance if it must be, but spare me to my own heart.”
“Do you know the insults you cast upon me?” cried he, savagely. “Are you aware that it is to my own ears you speak these words?”
“Do not quarrel with me because I deal honestly by you,” said she, firmly. “I will not promise that I cannot pay. Remember, too, Ludlow, that what I ask of you I do not ask from your generosity. I make no claim to what I have forfeited all right. I simply demand the price you set upon a certain article of which to me the possession is more than life. I make no concealment from you. I own it frankly—openly.”
“You want your letters, and never to hear more of me!” said he, sternly.
“What sum will you take for them?” said she, in a slow, whispering voice.
“You ask what will enable you to set me at defiance forever, Loo! Say it frankly and fairly. You want to tear your bond and be free.”
She did not speak, and he went on,—