‘But do you not love me, too, my sister?’
‘Do I not love you? But not as I love him! Oh, hush, hush!—, you cannot understand yet!’ And Pelagia hid her face in her hands, while convulsive shudderings ran through every limb....
‘I must do it! I must! I will dare every thing, stoop to everything for love’s sake! Go to her!—to the wise woman!—to Hypatia! She loves you! I know that she loves you! She will hear you, though she will not me!’
‘Hypatia? Do you know that she was sitting there unmoved at—in the theatre?’
‘She was forced! Orestes compelled her! Miriam told me so. And I saw it in her face. As I passed beneath her, I looked up; and she was as pale as ivory, trembling in every limb. There was a dark hollow round her eyes—she had been weeping, I saw. And I sneered in my mad self-conceit, and said, “She looks as if she was going to be crucified, not married!”. But now, now!—Oh, go to her! Tell her that I will give her all I have—jewels, money, dresses, house! Tell her that I—I—entreat her pardon, that I will crawl to her feet myself and ask it, if she requires!—Only let her teach me—teach me to be wise and good, and honoured, and respected, as she is! Ask her to tell a poor broken-hearted woman her secret. She can make old Wulf, and him, and Orestes even, and the magistrates, respect her.... Ask her to teach me how to be like her, and to make him respect me again, and I will give her all—all!’
Philammon hesitated. Something within warned him, as the Daemon used to warn Socrates, that his errand would be bootless. He thought of the theatre, and of that firm, compressed lip; and forgot the hollow eye of misery which accompanied it, in his wrath against his lately-worshipped idol.
‘Oh, go! go! I tell you it was against her will. She felt for me—I saw it—Oh, God! when I did not feel for myself! And I hated her, because she seemed to despise me in my fool’s triumph! She cannot despise me now in my misery.... Go! Go! or you will drive me to the agony of going myself.’
There was but one thing to be done.
‘You will wait, then, here? You will not leave me again?’
‘Yes. But you must be quick! If he finds out that I am away, he may fancy.... Ah, heaven! let him kill me, but never let him be jealous of me! Go now! this moment! Take this as an earnest—the cestus which I wore there. Horrid thing! I hate the sight of it! But I brought it with me on purpose, or I would have thrown it into the canal. There; say it is an earnest—only an earnest—of what I will give her!’