“Harm!” she echoed, in a hoarse voice. “There are different degrees of harm. What one person thinks justifiable may shock and disgust another person. If your ideas of what is right are so very lofty, you have no right to take for granted that mine, which may be rather lower, are degrading and wholly unjustifiable.”
“I take nothing for granted. I only see that you are miserable and unhappy, and that you are so because you are acting against your conscience at the bidding of a person whom you fear and whose influence you know to be bad,” retorted Gerard.
She made an impatient movement.
“Why begin the old arguments all over again?” she said shortly. “Why don’t you see for yourself that I have willingly and with open eyes adopted a certain course, and why don’t you leave me alone to endure the punishment if I have done wrong, or to receive the reward if I have done right? Believe me, you are only harassing me, adding to my troubles and embarrassments by your persistent persecution. Nothing will turn me from the course I have entered upon, about which I will only say this, that I entered upon it of my own free will, with entire knowledge of its promises and possible rewards, and of its disadvantages as well.”
“I would leave you alone if you were happy,” burst out Gerard. “It is because I see you are miserable and harassed, because I hear you imploring to be let off doing that which you have been ordered to do, that I beg you to leave this career, and its rewards, and the rest of it, at any rate for a time. If you would only leave London for a while, go away somewhere and rest and forget this work and all its troubles, I would be content. But until you do, until I know that you are taking the rest and holiday you need, I shall continue what you call my persecution, in the hope of being near you at the moment—which is sure to come—when you will want a friend to stand by you, a better one than those for whom you are working now.”
He was conscious that he was weak in argument, and that his lame words would have but little effect against the resolve which set her mouth firm and shone in her mournful eyes.
What he had not been prepared for, however, was the gentleness with which she received this tirade, as she stood up in the compartment and prepared to get out at the next station.
“You are only adding to my difficulties,” she said, in a tone of mournful resignation. “I quite appreciate the kindness of your motives, but your actions worry and harass me. In gratitude for your good intentions I say ‘Thank you.’ But in self-defense, as you are with the best will in the world doing me a decided injury, I must say also: I wish to Heaven I had never met you, and that I may, now that I have had the misfortune to meet you, never meet you again.”
She ended with a sort of stifled sob.
The cruel words stabbed Gerard to the heart. He uttered an incoherent protest, but she would not listen. Going quickly to the end of the compartment, she remained standing, with her back turned towards him and without uttering another word, until the train stopped at the next station, when she hurriedly got out, ran up the steps, and jumped into a hansom, leaving him, remorseful, uneasy, and miserable, on the platform.