“We shall not be together; we shall have parted.”
The blood rushed to Stephen’s face.
“We shall not,” he said. “I’ll die first.”
It was as he had dreaded—there was a struggle coming. But neither of them dared to say another word till the boat was let down, and they were taken to the landing-place. Here there was a cluster of gazers and passengers awaiting the departure of the steamboat to St Ogg’s. Maggie had a dim sense, when she had landed, and Stephen was hurrying her along on his arm, that some one had advanced toward her from that cluster as if he were coming to speak to her. But she was hurried along, and was indifferent to everything but the coming trial.
A porter guided them to the nearest inn and posting-house, and Stephen gave the order for the chaise as they passed through the yard. Maggie took no notice of this, and only said, “Ask them to show us into a room where we can sit down.”
When they entered, Maggie did not sit down, and Stephen, whose face had a desperate determination in it, was about to ring the bell, when she said, in a firm voice,—
“I’m not going; we must part here.”
“Maggie,” he said, turning round toward her, and speaking in the tones of a man who feels a process of torture beginning, “do you mean to kill me? What is the use of it now? The whole thing is done.”
“No, it is not done,” said Maggie. “Too much is done,—more than we can ever remove the trace of. But I will go no farther. Don’t try to prevail with me again. I couldn’t choose yesterday.”
What was he to do? He dared not go near her; her anger might leap out, and make a new barrier. He walked backward and forward in maddening perplexity.