He was moved at last, though I could not tell on what raw place of pride or personal vanity my words flicked him. His manner changed. Consideration came into it, and some trace of humility.
“Deirdre, you would not leave me?”
“Not unless you force me to. But so sure as you forget the compact there is between us, Maurice, I will go. Understand now clearly and then let us speak of it no more. I married you believing Anthony Kinsella to be dead, and hoping to dedicate the rest of my loveless life to something which would make it worth the living. You offered me the task of helping you, and I took it with a clear bargain between us, and a hope—Ah! I know not what hope, but I thought that perhaps—life might still bear some little gentle flower. And so it may,”—I found courage to continue, looking at his whitening face: “I pray God for your sake, that it may. But you must not forget, Maurice, that things do not stand just where they were that night we made our bargain; do not forget that I gave my promise with a lie between us that made all the difference to me; that now I know the truth and believe Anthony Kinsella still alive I can no more help loving him than I can help my heart beating. You can drive me from your home if you choose, but I tell you that I love him, and I will never forswear my love for him. I cannot now ever give him my body as he has my soul; but neither will I give it to another.”
My voice had sunk to a whisper. My words rustled out like leaves across my dry lips. He, too, was pallid-faced and stammering.
“This is a bitter bargain!”
“Not less for you than for me,” I contended inexorably, for I was fighting for more than life. I knew that if this last appeal failed it would be the end. The ship of our marriage must founder, and we two, like broken, useless spars float apart on dangerous seas.
For me the thought of living in companionship with this man held nothing but terror and disgust. But with the fervour of a Catholic I clung to the marriage vows I had made, not only because my faith and the traditions of all the clean, pure women of my ancestry bade me do it; but, because I terribly feared for what might happen when Anthony Kinsella came riding back into my life, as now with the clear prevision of an Irishwoman I knew he would.
If I were alone—married and yet alone—and he should come for me, would I refuse to go? No, no, no! I knew the spell of my love and the strength of his will too well to suppose it! Faith and tradition would go to the winds; they would be burnt up in the fierce flame of our love.
I was fighting with Maurice Stair for my soul. I could not love him; he was an unworthy traitor and liar, but I was his wife and I wanted his home and name to shelter me from sin. Only, I would take them on no other conditions than those I had named to him.
Long, long we stayed there, fighting that fight. I cannot remember all that was said. I only know that once I sank into a chair almost fainting, that once there was a time when he wept like a child, his head on the table. At another he reviled me until my knees shook, and cursed the hour I had set foot in his life.