For the last few minutes a great battle had been waging in Cecil Tresilyan’s heart. Can the wisest of us, before the armies meet, prophesy aright as to the issue of such an Armageddon?
Twice she tried to speak, and found her voice rebellious; at last she answered, in a faint, broken tone, “I can not say how I pity you.”
He threw back his lofty head in anger or disdain.
“I will not accept groundless compassion, even from you. Do not deceive yourself. I have learned how to bear my burden; it scarcely cumbers me now. It has fretted me more in the last three weeks than it has done for years. I only wish you to decide whether I did very wrong in keeping back the knowledge of all this from you; and, if I have offended unpardonably, what my punishment shall be.”
There was something more than reproach in the glance that flashed upon him out of the violet eyes; for an instant they glittered almost scornfully; her lip, too, had ceased to tremble, and the silver in her voice rang clear and true—
“You are not afraid to ask that question—remembering many words addressed to me, each one of which was an insult—from you? You dare not yet dishonor me in your thoughts so far as to doubt how I should have acted at first, if I had known your true position. Or are you amusing yourself still at my expense? I had thought you more generous.”
The gloom on Royston’s face deepened sullenly: though he had schooled himself up to a certain point of humility, even from her he could ill brook reproof.
“Those insults were not premeditated, at least,” he retorted. “Have you not got accustomed yet to men’s losing their heads in your presence, and then talking as the spirit moved them? And you think I am amusing myself now. Merci! there runs something in my veins warmer than ice-water.”
His accent was abrupt, even to rudeness, yet Cecil felt a thrill of guilty triumph as she heard it, and marked the shiver of passion that shot through the colossal frame from brow to heel. A more perfect specimen of immaculate womanhood might not have been insensible to that 53 acknowledgment of her power. But she shook her head in sorrowful incredulity.
“You do less than justice to your self-control. But it is too late for reproaches. I forgive you for any wrong that you may have done me, even in thought or intention. I wish the past could be buried. For the future, I can say only this—we must part, and that instantly; it is more than time.”