"But you needn't suppose that your having that nature will stop me," he said, with a certain violence of tone roused by her agreement with these accusations. "You have confessed to some sort of liking for me, I shall take advantage of it as far as it goes (not far, I fear); I shall make it serve as the foundation of all I shall constantly attempt to do."
Her arms dropped by her sides. "Constantly? I believe there is nothing in the world so cruel as a man when he pretends to care for you." She moved off a step or two. "I do not love you, you say? I adore you. From almost the first day I saw you—yes, even from then. It is the one love of my life, and remember I am not a girl, it's a woman who tells you this—to her misery. And it is everything about you that I love—that makes it harder; not only what you say and how you say it, what you think and do, but what you are—oh! what you are in everything. The way you look at me, the tone of your voice, the turn of your head, your eyes, your hands—I love them, I love them all. I suffer every moment, it has been so for years. I am so miserable away from you, so desperate and lonely! And yet when I am with you, that is harder. Whichever way I turn, there is nothing but pain, it is so torturing that I wonder how I can have lived! Yet would I give it up? Never."
The splendor of her eyes, as she poured forth these words, her rapt expression, the slight figure, erect and tense—he could no more have dared to touch her then than he could have touched a shining seraph that had lighted for an instant in his path.
Her eyes suddenly changed. "When I have hurt you," she went on, "it has been so hard to do it—so hard!" She was the woman now; a mist had suffused the blue.
He came towards her, he sank down at her feet. "I am not worthy," he murmured, in real self-abasement.
"No, you are not. But—I love you."
He sprang up. "I will be worthy. You shall do all you think right, and I—will help you."
"Yes, help me by leaving me."
"For the present—I will go."
"For always."