“Because it will make me think less of you? Not so much so as your trying to slip away from me unawares.”
“You think it wouldn’t. But it would.”
“Try me!”
She released herself from the grasp of his hands. “Oh, if the cases had been reversed, how little I should have minded! No matter what you had done, you would have been the same to me—God knows you would! In life, in death, before anything and everything, I should have adored you always, you would always have come first.”
“So it is with me,” said Paul.
“No, it is not. And it’s for that reason I am leaving you.”
Paul made no more use of words. What she had said had left no impression upon him—no impression of importance. He had never been so much in love with her as at this moment.
“Don’t you see how I am suffering?—I cannot bear it. Oh, leave me! let me go! Another minute and I shall not have the strength.—Don’t kiss me again. Listen! I shot Ferdie, your brother. I—I!”
Paul’s arms dropped. “Ferdie? Poor Ferdie?” The tears rushed to his eyes. “Why, some negroes did it.”
“There were no negroes. It was I.”