"'It would have been a strange life we should have led,' she went on. 'I would not have left him even for a moment; he should have put on my shawl and carried me to and fro just the same, and I should have kissed him always when he went out and came in, as though we loved each other. I know his nature. It is—O God! I mean it was—the kind I could have worked upon. He was generous, very tender to all women; he would have yielded to me always, so far as bearing silently all my torments to the last.'"
Here Dexter interrupted the speaker. "You will acknowledge now what I said concerning her?"
"No," replied Anne; "Helen imagined it all. She could never have carried it out. She loved him too deeply."
Her eyes met his defiantly. The old feeling that he was an antagonist rose in her face for a moment, met by a corresponding retort in his. Then they both dropped their glance, and she resumed her narrative.
"It was here that she cried out, 'Yes, he has borne it so far, and now he is dead. But if he were alive, I should have taunted him with it. Do you hear? I say I should have taunted him.' This also Bagshot overheard. And then—" She paused.
"And then?" repeated Dexter, his eyes full upon her face.
"She grew calmer," said the girl, turning her face from him, and speaking for the first time hurriedly; "she even kissed me. 'You were always good and true,' she said. 'But it was easy to be good and true, if you did not love him.' I suppose she felt my heart throb suddenly (she was lying in my arms), for she sprang up, and wound her arms round my neck, bringing her eyes close to mine. Did you love him? she asked. 'Tell me—tell me; it will do no harm now.'
"But I drew myself out of her grasp, although she clung to me. I crossed the room. She followed me. 'Tell me,' she whispered; 'I shall not mind it. Indeed, I wish that you did love him, that you do love him, for then we would mourn for him together. I can be jealous of his love for you, but not of yours for him, poor child. Tell me, Anne; tell me. I long to know that you are miserable too.' She was leaning on me: in truth, she was too weak to stand alone. She clung to me in the old caressing way. 'Tell me,' she whispered. But I set my lips. Then, still clinging to me, her eyes fixed on mine, she said that I could not love; that I did not know what love meant; that I never would know, because my nature was too calm, too measured. She spoke other deriding words, which I will not repeat; and then—and then—I do not know how it came about, but I pushed her from me, with her whispering voice and shining eyes, and spoke out aloud (we were standing near that door) those words—those words which Bagshot has repeated."
"You said those words?"
"I did."