“Do you regret the sacrifice?”
“Regret it! How can you ask the question? If my possessions and privileges had been multiplied a thousand fold, they should have been, as I am now, all your own, to do your will with! No! I only referred to it to move you to generosity!”
“Marguerite! I cannot tolerate to see you in that attitude one instant longer,” said Mr. Helmstedt, taking her hands and forcing her to rise and sit by his side, “Now let us talk reasonably about this matter. Tell me, your husband, who has the right to know, why and where you wish to go, and I promise you that you shall go unquestioned and unblamed of all.”
“Oh, God, if I might!” escaped the lips of Marguerite, but she speedily controlled herself and said, “Philip, if you had secret business that concerned others, and that peremptorily called you from home to attend to it, would you not feel justified in leaving without even satisfying your wife’s curiosity as to why and where you went, if you could not do it without disclosing to her the affairs of others!”
“No—decidedly no! from my wife I have no secrets. I, who trusted her with my peace and honor, trust her also with all lesser matters; and to leave home for a month’s absence without informing her whither and wherefore I should go—Why, Marguerite, I hope you never really deemed me capable of offering you such an offence.”
“Oh, God!—and yet you could do so, unquestioned and unblamed, as many men do!”
“I could, but would not.”
“While I—would but cannot. Well, that is the difference between us.”
“Certainly, Marguerite, there is a difference between what would be fitting to—a profane man to a sacred woman—there is a ‘divinity that hedges’ the latter, through which she cannot break but to lose her glory.”
“But in my girlhood I had unmeasured, irresponsible liberty. None dared to cavil at my actions.”