He turns from her, and, going to the window, stares out blindly upon the dying daylight, and the gardens stretched beneath, where dying flowers seem breathing of, and suggesting, higher thoughts.
He is unutterably wretched. All through his short courtship he had entertained doubts of her affection; but now, to have her so openly, so carelessly, declare her indifference is almost more than he can bear. "We forgive so long as we love." To Dorian, though his love is greater than that of most, forgiveness now seems difficult. Yet can he resign her? She has so woven herself into his very heart-strings—this cold, cruel, lovely child—that he cannot tear her out without a still further surrender of himself to death. To live without her—to get through endless days and interminable nights without hope of seeing her, with no certain knowledge that the morrow will bring him sure tidings of her—seems impossible. He sighs; and then, even as he sighs, five slim cold little fingers steal within his.
"I have made you angry," says the plaintive voice, full of contrition. A shapely yellow head pushes itself under one of his arms, that is upraised, and a lovely sorrowful pleading face looks up into his. How can any one be angry with a face like that?
"No, not angry," he says. And indeed the anger has gone from his face,—her very touch has banished it,—and only a great and lasting sadness has replaced it. Perhaps for the first time, at this moment she grasps some faint idea of the intensity of his love for her. Her eyes fill with tears.
"I think—it will be better for you—to—give me up," she says, in a down-hearted way, lowering her lids over her tell-tale orbs, that are like the summer sea now that they shine through their unwonted moisture
"Tears are trembling in her blue eyes,
Like drops that linger on the violet,"
and Dorian, with a sudden passionate movement, takes her in his arms and presses her head down upon his breast.
"Do you suppose I can give you up now," he says, vehemently, "when I have set my whole heart upon you? It is too late to suggest such a course. That you do not love me is my misfortune, not your fault. Surely it is misery enough to know that,—to feel that I am nothing to you,—without telling me that you wish so soon to be released from your promise?"
"I don't wish it," she says, earnestly, shaking her head. "No, indeed! It was only for your sake I spoke. Perhaps by and by you will regret having married some one who does not love you altogether. Because I know I could not sit contentedly for hours with my hand in any one's. And there are a great many things I would not do for you. And if you were to die——"
"There! that will do," he says, with sudden passion. "Do you know how you hurt, I wonder? Are you utterly heartless?"