"I can't talk, Garda."
"That is it, Evert has talked! He has tired you out. I can imagine that when once he is in earnest—Margaret, let me tell you this one thing: you can't live under all this, you'll die."
"It's not so easy to die," answered Lansing Harold's wife.
"You think I don't know about Mr. Harold. But I do. Lucian heard the whole in Rome; I even saw her myself—in a carriage on the Pincio. I know that he left you twice to go to her—twice; what claim has he, then, upon you? But what is the use of my talking, if Evert has been able to do nothing!"
Margaret sat up. "Go now, Garda. I would rather be alone."
But Garda would not go. "I could never be like you," she went on. "And this is a case where you had better be more like me. Margaret! Margaret!" and she clung to her, suddenly. "Such a love as his would be!" she whispered—"how can you refuse it? I think it's wicked, too, because it's his whole life, he isn't Lansing Harold! And you love him so; you needn't deny it; I can feel your heart beating now."
"Go," said Margaret, drawing herself free, and rising. "You only hurt me, Garda. And you cannot change me."
But Garda followed her. "You adore him. And he—And you give all that up? Why—it's the dearest thing there is, the dearest thing we have; what are you made of?" She kept up with her, walking by her side.
Margaret was pacing the room aimlessly; she put out her arm as if to keep Garda off.
The girl accepted this, moving to that distance; but still she walked by her side. "And don't you ever think of the life he's leading?—the life you're making him lead?" she went on. "He's unhappy—of course he didn't tell me why. He's growing hard and bitter, he's ever so much changed; remember that I have just seen him, only a few days ago. It's dreadful to have to say that he has changed for the worse, because I like him so much; but I am afraid he has,—yes, he has. You see he needs some one—I like him so much."