“Ess fay, though more like six years to me—six years o’ raging, roasting hell. Why do ’e bide here? Why do ’e take walks along wi’ she—skulking in the woods away from honest eyes like a fox? You’ve lied to me—”
“Don’t speak quite so loud, John. I cannot help the past. It was not my doing. I never sought out Sarah. We are all tools in the hand of Fate or Providence, or whatever you like to call it; we are puppets and must dance to the tune God is pleased to play. We’re not free, any of us—not free to make promises or give undertakings. Doesn’t this prove that we’re slaves to a man? I love Sarah Belworthy with all my heart and soul. That is not a sin. There is nothing in the world for me but her. I’m frank enough to you now; and if I lied before, it was because I thought I could control what was to come. I tried to keep my word. I turned from her path many times. I begged to be allowed to go away from the Moor, but my father would not suffer me to change my mind again. I swear I did my best; but loving is another matter. I might as easily have promised not to breathe as not to love her.”
“Words! An’ her—an’ me—?”
“It’s cursedly hard. God knows I don’t find it easy to answer you. But think: picture yourself in her place. Imagine that you found a woman you loved better than Sarah.”
“’Tis allus lifting of the burden on to other folks’ shoulders wi’ you. I ban’t agwaine to imagine vain things at your bidding. Dost hear me? I want the plain truth in plain speech. But that’s more’n you could give me, I reckon. The question I’ve got to ax, my girl’s got to answer. An’ I call her ‘my girl,’ yet, until I hear from her awn lips she ban’t my girl no more. Then—then—Christ knaws what—”
“If there’s any sort of satisfaction on earth, I’d give it to you. I know better than you can tell me that I’m a weak man. And I’ve hated myself for many days when I thought of you; but there it is—a fact beyond any mending.”
“Get out of her life, if you’re honest, an’ doan’t whine to me ’bout things being beyond mendin’! Go! Turn your back on her an’ let the dazzle of ’e fade out of her eyes an’ out of her mind. You knaw so well as me, that it ban’t beyond mendin’. She promised to marry me ’fore ever she seed the shadow of you; an’ you knawed it from the fust moment you set eyes on her; an’ yet you went on an’ sinked from manhood into this. You’m a whole cowardice o’ curs in the skin o’ one man, damn you!”
“You do right to curse. You will never feel greater contempt for me than I do for myself. I cannot go away. It is impossible—wholly above my strength. And the position is beyond mending, despite what you say—both for Sarah and for me. It is no crime in her to love me; the fault is mine, and if I had sworn on my hope of salvation to you, I should have broken my oath as I did my promise. Measure my punishment—that is all you can do; and I won’t flinch from it.”
“She loves you—better’n what she do me? It’s come to that; an’ you ax me to measure your punishment! You pitiful wretch! You know you’m safe enough now. She loves you better’n me. Theer’s your safety. ‘Struth! I could smash your bones like rotten wood, an’ you know it; but she loves you better’n me; an’ who be I to crack her painted china wi’ my rough cloam? I doan’t love her no less—anyways not so little as to bruise you, an’ that you knowed afore you spoke. Get out o’ my sight an’ may worse fall on you than ever I would bring. May the thing you’ve done breed an’ bite an’ sap the heart out of ’e like a canker worm; may it bring thorns to your roses, an’ death to your hopes, an’ storms to your skies; may it fill your cup wi’ gall an’ bend your back afore your time an’ sting you on your death-bed. May it do all that, an’ more, so as you’ll mind this hour an’ know if I’d scatted your lying brains abroad an’ killed ’e, ’twould have been kinder than to let you live!”
“I have deserved your hardest words; but forgive her—now that you yield her up; forgive her if ever you loved her, for the fault was none of hers.”