"Miss Warren—Emily—do you remember this little York and Lancaster bud that you gave me the day we first met? Do you remember my half-jesting, random words, 'To the victor belong the spoils'? See, the victor is at your feet."
She sprang up and turned her back upon me. "Rise!" she said, in a voice so cold and stern that, bewildered, I obeyed.
She soon became as calm as before she had been passionate and unrestrained in her grief; but it was a stony quietness that chilled and disheartened me before she spoke.
"It does indeed seem as if the truth between us could never be hidden," she said, bitterly. "You have now very clearly shown your estimate of me. You regard me as one of those weak women of the past whom the strongest carry off. You have been the stronger in this case—oh, you know it well! Not even in the house of God could I escape your vigilant scrutiny. You hoped and watched and waited for me to be false. Should I yield to you, you would never forget that I had been false, and, in accordance with your creed, you would ever fear—that is, if your passion lasted long enough—the coming of one still stronger, to whom in the weak necessity of my nature, I again would yield. Low as I have fallen, I will never accept from a man a mere passion devoid of respect and honor. I'm no longer entitled to these, therefore I'll accept nothing."
She poured out these words like a torrent, in spite of my gestures of passionate dissent, and my efforts to be heard; but it was a cold, pitiless torrent. Excited as I was, I saw how intense was her self-loathing. I also saw despairingly that she embraced me in her scorn.
"Miss Warren," I said, dejectedly, "since you are so unjust to yourself, what hope have I?"
"There is little enough for either of us," she continued, more bitterly; "at least there is none for me. You will, no doubt, get bravely over it, as you said. Men generally do, especially when in their hearts they have no respect for the woman with whom they are infatuated. Mr. Morton, the day of your coming was indeed the day of my fate. I wish you could have saved the lives of the others, but not mine. I could then have died in peace, with honor unstained. But now, what is my life but an intolerable burden of shame and self-reproach? Without cause and beyond the thought of forgiveness, I've wronged a good, honorable man, who has been a kind and faithful friend for years. He is bringing his proud, aristocratic sister here to-night to learn how false and contemptible I am. The people among whom I earned my humble livelihood will soon know how unfit I am to be trusted with their daughters—that I am one who falls a spoil to the strongest. I have lost everything—chief of all my pearl of great price—my truth. What have I left? Is there a more impoverished creature in the world? There is nothing left to me but bare existence and hateful memories. Oh, the lightning was dim compared with the vividness with which I've seen it all since that hateful moment last night, when the truth became evident even to Adah Yocomb. But up to that moment, even up to this hour, I hoped you pitied me—that you were watching and waiting to help me to be true and not to be false. I did not blame you greatly for your love—my own weakness made me lenient—and at first you did not know. But since you now openly seek that which belongs to another; since you now exult that you are the stronger, and that I have become your spoil, I feel, though I cannot yet see and realize the depths into which I have fallen. Even to-day you might have helped me as a friend, and shown me how some poor shred of my truth might have been saved; but you snatch at me as if I were but the spoil of the strongest. Mr. Morton, either you or I must leave the farmhouse at once."
"This is the very fanaticism of truth," I cried, desperately. "Your mind is so utterly warped and morbid from dwelling on one side of this question that you are cruelly unjust."
"Would that I had been less kind and more just. I felt sorry for you, from the depths of my heart. Why have you had no pity for me? You are a man of the world, and know it. Why did you not show me to what this wretched weakness would lead? I thought you meant this kindness when you said you wished my brother was here. Oh that I were sleeping beside him! I thought you meant this when you said that nothing would last, nothing could end well unless built on the truth. I hoped you were watching me with the vigilance of a man who, though loving me, was so strong and generous and honorable that he would try to save me from a weakness that I cannot understand, and which was the result of strange and unforeseen circumstances. When you were so ill I felt as if I had dealt you your death-blow, and then, woman-like, I loved you. I loved you before I recognized my folly. Up to that point we could scarcely help ourselves. For weeks I tried to hide the truth from myself. I fought against it. I prayed against it through sleepless nights. I tried to hide the truth from you most of all. But I remember the flash of hope in your face when you first surmised my miserable secret. It hurt me cruelly. Your look should have been one of dismay and sorrow. But I know something of the weakness of the heart, and its first impulse might naturally be that of gladness, although honor must have changed it almost instantly into deep regret. Then I believed that you were sorry, and that it was your wish to help me. I thought it was your purpose yesterday to show me that I could be happy, even in the path of right and duty, that had become so hard, though you spoke once as you ought not. But when I, unawares, and from the impulse of a grateful heart, spoke your name last night as that of my truest and best friend, as I thought, you turned toward me the face of a lover, and to-day—but it's all over. Will you go?"
"Are Mr. and Mrs. Yocomb false?" I cried.