“That’s all your argument—that I’m mad! You say it again and again, as though it comforted you! Yes—I am mad in one way—I’m mad not to hate you ten thousand times more than I do—and I do hate you—for what you’ve done! You’ve torn up my heart by the roots and thrown it to that wretched girl—you’ve twisted, and wrenched, and broken everything that was tender in me, everything that was for you, and was yours—and it won’t grow again! You’ve taken everything—have I ever refused you anything? You’ve taken it all, and I thought that you’d never had it before, and that for its sake you loved me, because I loved you so—that you’d wear me in your heart, and carry me in your hands, and love me all your life—and for that girl, that creature with her grey eyes—oh, what is it? What has she got that I haven’t, and that makes you love her—what? What?”
She covered her eyes with a desperate gesture, and her voice almost broke as she repeated the last word. Below her hand her lips trembled, and Crowdie watched them. Then before she looked at him again, he had passed the chair and was trying to take her in his arms. For an instant she struggled with him, holding her face back from him and thrusting him away. But his small white hands had more strength in them than hers.
“Walter—don’t!” she cried, pushing against him with all her might. “Don’t! Don’t!” she repeated.
But in spite of her, he got near to her face, and kissed her on the cheek. She started violently, and then wrenched herself free.
“How dare you?” she exclaimed, angrily, retreating half across the room with the rush of the effort she had made.
Crowdie laughed, not naturally, and not at all musically. There was a curious hoarseness in the tone, and his eyes glittered.
“And how dare you laugh at me?” she asked, moving still further back, towards the door, as he advanced. “Have you no heart, no feeling—no sense? Can’t you understand how it hurts when you touch me?”
“I don’t want to understand anything so foolish,” answered Crowdie, suddenly growing coldly angry again. “If you’re afraid of me—well, I won’t go near you until you see how silly you are. There’s no other word—it’s silly.”
“Silly! When it’s all my life.” Her voice shook. “Oh, Walter, Walter! You’re breaking my heart!”
A passionate sob struggled with the words, and she fell into a chair by the door, covering her face with her hands again. Then came another sob, and the convulsion of her strength as she tried to choke it down, and it broke the barrier and burst out with a wild storm of scalding tears.