“Thank you—no,” she answered, very sadly, and turned to leave the room—hesitated, came back, and resting her hand upon the study-table for support, because she was trembling, said, “Forgive me—and let me speak to you one more word, will you?”
“What is it?”
“It is so sorrowful to be misunderstood. Please, do not mistake me in this matter. For myself, I do not care to follow up my acquaintance with these county people. I have lived all my life without extensive social intercourse. I have lived all my life in strict domestic retirement. I am so used to it that it is natural and agreeable to me. Indeed, I prefer it—but—”
“Well?”
She was suddenly silent. She wished to say, “But with you it is otherwise. Living in the county, you need, or will hereafter need an extensive neighborhood connection. And for your sake, I would not alienate these people by neglect.” But she could not say it. Her old shyness, and a delicate fear of seeming to wish to place him under an obligation, kept her mute.
“Well, Mrs. Clifton? If such seclusion is so agreeable to you, why do you wish to change it?”
“I owe the ladies some acknowledgment of their civility to us.”
“Have you anything farther to say to me?”
“No,” said Catherine, and with an involuntary gesture of pain and distress, she turned and left the room, with all her generous thoughts unspoken. When the door had closed behind her, Archer Clifton started up, struck his clenched hands to his forehead, and pacing up and down the floor, distractedly exclaimed—
“I love her! I love her! It is no use, I do love her! Every day more deeply and desperately I love her! In her presence all her unworthiness is forgotten or disbelieved! Yes! yes! her deep hypocrisy, her black ingratitude, my mother’s wrongs, all, all are lost to memory! Just now I could have snatched her to my bosom and wept over her falsehood, rather than have cast her from me! Yes, more! I could have implored her forgiveness for ever believing in that guilt which is but too well proved! I love her! She is the pulse of my heart! the soul of my life! She embodies all the meaning of existence to me! Heart and brain—yes!—body, soul and spirit starve, perish for a full reconciliation and a perfect union with her! She is lovely, she is beautiful to me! She always was! Yet, oh! Apple of Sodom, that she is! shall I take such falsehood and corruption to my heart. I must leave the house! must leave the neighborhood! for here I wilt and wither! And she! how can she bear it? for I think, with all her falseness, she loves me very much. How can she bear life so? How can she rise each morning and go through all the occupations of the day so regularly, quietly, cheerfully, day after day?—omitting no duty, domestic or social, small or great, from the stitching my ripped gloves, to the keeping up of the county connection, in sooth! While I, I daily wilt, wither, in this moral mildew—idle, despairing, forgetting all my obligations—forgetting that my country needs my arm! This cannot last! This must not be! I must get away from here! I must raise a volunteer company, and offer myself to the government, and in the tumult of the campaign find forgetfulness or a grave!”