“You,” he said.
He seemed to cast the word at her and wonder what she would make of it He waited a second or so before he went on.
“You, and yet you are not the woman I love either. Good God! What a villain I must be. I am an insult to every woman that breathes. It is not even you—though I can't break from you, and you have made me despise myself. There! do you know now—do you see now that I am not worth “—
The next instant he started backward. Before he had time for a thought she had uttered a low cry, and flung herself down at his feet.
“I don't keer,” she panted; “I wont keer fur nothin',—whether ye're good or bad,—only don't leave me here when ye go away.”
A week later Lennox arose one morning and set about the task of getting his belongings together. He had been up late and had slept heavily and long. He felt exhausted and looked so.
The day before, his model had given him his last sitting. The picture stood finished upon the easel. It was a thorough and artistic piece of work, and yet the sight of it was at times unbearable to him. There were times again, however, when it fascinated him anew when he went and stood opposite to it, regarding it with an intense gaze. He scarcely knew how the last week had passed. It seemed to have been spent in alternate feverish struggles and reckless abandonment to impulse. He had let himself drift here and there, he had at last gone so far as to tell himself that the time had arrived when baseness was possible to him.
“I don't promise you an easy life,” he had said to Dusk the night before. “I tell you I am a bad fellow, and I have lost something through you that I cared for. You may wish yourself back again.”
“If you leave me,” she said, “I'll kill myself!” and she struck her hands together.