"As you ask me the question, I will answer you. No, I do not. Had you, at any time, felt one particle of affection for me, you could never have so misunderstood me. Let things now remain as they are. Though I think that perhaps, for the short time I shall remain at home, it will be better for your sake that we should appear before the world, at least, as friends."
"You are leaving home again?" she asks, timidly. Now, as he stands before her, so tall, and strong, and unforgiving, with this new-born dignity upon him, she fully realizes, for the first time, all she has recklessly resigned. He had loved her at one time, surely, and she had trampled on that love, until she had crushed out of it all life and sweetness:
"For it so falls out
That what we have we prize not to the worth
While we enjoy it; but, being lacked and lost,
Why, then we rack the value; then we find
The virtue that possession would not show us
While it was ours."
"Yes, as soon as I can finish the business that has brought me back. I fear that will keep me two months, at least. I wish I could hasten it, but it would be impossible." He grows slightly distrait, but, after a moment, rouses himself with a start, and looks at her. "Am I keeping you?" he asks, courteously. (To her the courtesy is a positive cruelty.) "Do not let me detain you any longer. Is there anything more you wish to say to me?"
"Nothing." His last words have frozen within her all desire for reconciliation. Is he, indeed, in such great haste to be gone? Without another word, she goes to the door, but, as she puts out her hand to open it, something within her grasp becomes known to her. It is the glove she had picked up on the balcony half an hour ago, and has held ever since almost unconsciously.
"Was it—was it you that threw this from the window?" she says, suddenly, for the last time raising her beautiful eyes to her husband's face.
"Yes. This was no place for it," returns he, sternly.
Going down the staircase, full of grief and wounded pride, she encounters Lord Sartoris.
"He has come?" asks the old man, in an agitated manner, laying his hand on her arm.
"He has. If you wish to see him, he is in his own room," replies she, in a singularly hard tone.