“I cannot,” he said. “I cannot trust myself to go in—even to look at you, Daireen.”
“Oh, God!” she said, “you are ill—your face—your voice——”
“I am not ill, Daireen. I have an hour of strength—such strength as is given to men when they look at Death in the face and are not moved at all. I kissed you last night——”
“And you will now,” she said, clasping his arm tenderly. “Dearest, do not speak so terribly—do not look so terrible—so like—ah, that night when you looked up to me from the water.”
“Daireen, why did I do that? Why did you pluck me from that death to give me this agony of life—to give yourself all the bitterness that can come to any soul? Daireen, I kissed you only once, and I can never kiss you again. I cannot be false to you any longer after having touched your pure spirit. I have been false to you—false, not by my will—but because to me God denied what He gave to others—others to whom His gift was an agony—that divine power to begin life anew. My past still clings to me, Daireen—it is not past—it is about and around me still—it is the gulf that separates us, Daireen.”
“Separates us?” she said blankly, looking at him.
“Separates us,” he repeated, “as heaven and hell are separated. We have been the toys—the playthings, of Fate. If you had not looked out of your cabin that night, we should both be happy now. And then how was it we came to love each other and to know it to be love? I struggled against it, but I was as a feather upon the wind. Ah, God has given us this agony of love, for I am here to look on you for the last time—to beseech of you to hate me, and to go away knowing that you love me.”
“No, no, not to go away—anything but that. Tell me all—I can forgive all.”
“I cannot bring my lips to frame my curse,” he said after a little pause. “But you shall hear it, and, Daireen, pity me as you pitied me when I looked to God for hope and found none. Child—give me your eyes for the last time.”
She held him clasped with her white hands, and he saw that her passion made her incapable of understanding his words. She looked up to him whispering, “The last time—no, no—not the last time—not the last.”